Word: turkeys
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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While the Western leaders easily reached agreement on the defense program, they sidestepped another serious problem: the hostility between NATO members Greece and Turkey over Cyprus. One senior diplomat called the schism "a serious menace to NATO'S eastern flank, perhaps even to the alliance's future. It is a terrible wound." Making it even worse, in NATO'S eyes, is Congress's 1974 embargo on U.S. arms shipments to Turkey, which used weapons provided by the U.S. in Cyprus...
Last week Carter began an all-out effort at persuading the House to lift the ban later this month. Meeting at the White House with 14 Congressmen who favor repeal, Carter said that the embargo had "driven a wedge" between the U.S. and Turkey and "shaken very seriously the cohesiveness of the NATO alliance" (see WORLD). In a strategy memo distributed to the Congressmen, the Administration outlined a lobbying effort every bit as intensive as the one that preceded Senate approval of the Middle East plane deal...
...strongly pro-Greek U.S. Congress then imposed an arms embargo on Turkey over the objections of Gerald Ford. Turkey, in turn, reacted by shutting down 26 American military installations...
Relations between Greece and Turkey were further strained by a jurisdictional dispute in the Aegean Sea. Ever since oil was discovered off Thassos in 1971,* Greece has insisted that each of the 3,000 Greek islands in the sea has its own continental shelf, making the Aegean an exclusively Greek preserve. The Turks claim that the continental shelf of the Anatolian mainland bestows about half of the Aegean on Turkey. Two years ago, the countries came to the brink of war after Turkey sent an oil-exploration vessel around the area to establish Turkish rights. Meanwhile, both countries still maintain...
...Carter Administration favors more sympathy toward Turkey, which shares a 370-mile border with the Soviet Union. Turkey also controls the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, strategic straits that provide access to the Mediterranean for Russia's powerful Black Sea fleet. Moreover, Turkey's entire 500,000-strong armed forces have been seriously weakened by the arms embargo; the effectiveness of its air force has declined by 50%. Says Secretary of State Cyrus Vance: "Turkey supplies more ground forces to NATO than any other na tion. If Turkey is to continue to play its NATO role, our relationship must be revitalized...