Unsettling Allied Enemies

Prospects are fair that Greece and Turkey will take their dispute over submerged oil lands in the Aegean Sea to the World Court, where it belongs. Experience also suggests that the two countries will continue to quarrel about this and that, and that Greek Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou will keep picking fights with Washington to draw attention away from his misadventures at home.

Greece and Turkey agreed in 1976 not to prospect for oil on the seabeds outside their territorial waters until the question of rights on the continental shelf was settled. However, the Turks have become upset over the right claimed by Greece to extend its territorial boundaries from 6 to 12 miles offshore from each of the 2,000-odd Greek islands in the Aegean Sea.

When the Turks saw signs last month that the Greeks were preparing to explore for oil in disputed waters, they ordered a seismic research vessel, accompanied by Turkish warships, to sail into the area. The Greek government responded with threats to fire on the Turkish ships.

Greece and Turkey see each other as enemies, though they are nominally allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Under Papandreou’s leadership, Greece has gone out of its way to be troublesome. The Athens government has pointedly separated itself from the NATO majority on issue after issue, ranging from terrorism to the deployment of U.S. missiles in Western Europe.

The United States maintains important military bases in Greece, as it does in Turkey, and has tried to maintain a position of neutrality in the disputes between them. However, Papandreou is not willing to settle for U.S. neutrality; using the presence of the American bases as leverage, he tries to manipulate the United States into supporting Greece against Turkey.

The Greek leader, a former professor at UC-Berkeley, has threatened to close the U.S. bases ever since his Socialist Party came to power in 1981. The threats blow hot and cold, but tend to intensify when trouble arises with Turkey or when he gets into domestic political trouble because of his mismanagement of the limping Greek economy. He just happened to be embroiled in a quarrel with the Greek Orthodox Church over planned nationalization of church properties when he conveniently triggered the crisis over offshore oil claims.

Nobody was surprised when, at the height of the crisis, Papandreou sought moral support from the Soviet Bloc. At the same time, he accused Washington of supporting the Turks--a blatantly false claim--and ordered operations suspended at a U.S. communications base near Athens. (The order was later revoked.)

A shooting war between Greece and Turkey, which holds down NATO’s pivotal southern flank, could have been disastrous for the alliance. Fortunately, both countries pulled back from the brink and agreed to discuss their competing claims.

Washington, however, should not forget Papandreou’s finger-in-your-eye behavior toward the United States at the height of the crisis. The bases in Greece are valuable; we would prefer to keep them. But if Papandreou is determined to behave like an adversary, we should go elsewhere.

A Pentagon official said last week that this country is in fact preparing contingency plans for moving the bases if U.S.-Greek relations don’t improve. We hope that the Administration means it.