Bush Calls on Greeks to Settle Cyprus Dispute

President Bush, opening the first visit by a U.S. President to Greece and Turkey since 1959, pressed the Greek government of Prime Minister Constantine Mitsotakis on Thursday to settle the 17-year dispute over Cyprus, “and do so this year.”

Taking the unusual step of interjecting himself immediately and publicly into a dispute in which the United States has had relatively little involvement, Bush pledged U.S. assistance to Greece, Turkey and Cyprus. He said in a speech to the Greek Parliament:

“With new leaders of vision, your nations enjoy a unique opportunity to overcome the misunderstandings of the past. You can begin to heal the deep wounds that scar Cyprus, that divide families and friends on that island.”

In response to the President’s visit, hundreds of anti-American rioters set fires and wrecked offices in downtown Athens. They were dispersed by police.

In his speech, Bush also said the United States, which has paid close attention to Turkey’s security concerns over the past year in the wake of neighboring Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, will speed up the shipment of 10 F-4E jet fighters and will deliver an additional 18 this autumn. The F-4 is a relatively unsophisticated fighter that has been supplanted in the U.S. force by the F-16 and F-15.

Cyprus, an island in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, was invaded by Turkey in 1974, after a pro-Greek coup. U.N. patrols separate approximately 170,000 Turkish Cypriots in the north and 850,000 Greek Cypriots to the south, and Turkish troops continue to occupy the north.

Bush, who visits Turkey on Saturday and Sunday, is hoping to give the two uneasy neighbors a diplomatic nudge, hoping they will fall in line behind an effort by U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar to get the four sides--Greece, Turkey, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots--to negotiate a solution.

White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said Bush wants “to step up progress in some fashion.”

But Bush acknowledged at a news conference after a nearly two-hour meeting with Mitsotakis that he was offering little beyond encouragement and had not presented specific proposals to get the four parties together.

“I don’t want to suggest that the United States can wave a wand, a magic wand, and solve a problem that has plagued this part of the world for a long time,” he said, with Mitsotakis at his side.

A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that “it’s more of a hope . . . that it can be resolved. Greece and Turkey are making more noises about finding a solution.

“We’re not bringing a peace plan,” he said.

Bush said at the news conference, on a sunbaked patio, that he told Mitsotakis that if the United States “could be a catalyst to help solve the problem of Cyprus, we’d willingly fulfill that role.”

“It is not my role to spell out the steps, nor is it my role to spell out the procedures,” he said. “It is my role to use whatever authority the United States may have . . . to further support for the United Nations secretary general’s proposals in any way I can.”

In recent years, Greece has had rocky relations with the United States and has long suspected Washington of a tilt toward Turkey. The presidential visit--balanced carefully between Greece and Turkey to avoid appearing to favor one of the rivals--was the first since Dwight D. Eisenhower stopped here nearly 32 years ago, and it produced a spate of anti-American incidents.

Several hundred students and others battled riot police Thursday evening near the Parliament building in downtown Athens, setting fires and throwing gasoline bombs and stones as a protest against Bush’s visit.

The offices of American Express and the Bank of Greece were heavily damaged. Police dispersed the rioters with tear gas and reported that several were injured.

Security for the presidential visit was extremely heavy in the wake of a number of bombings.

As Bush arrived, a military honor guard, clad in traditional costumes of crimson berets, embroidered black and white vests, short white skirts, off-white leggings, black knee garters and red clog-like shoes decorated with black pompons, greeted him at the Athens International Airport.

Crowds gathered along a beachfront route, lined with U.S. and Greek flags, as the presidential motorcade swept into town from the airport to the east. Some on the sidewalks waved, others merely watched.

And in the Parliament, the only point at which Bush was interrupted by applause was when he invited 84-year-old Greek President Constantine Karamanlis, who was the prime minister when Eisenhower visited, to the United States on a state visit next year.

He was greeted with silence when he said:

“None of us should accept the status quo in Cyprus. And today I pledge that the United States will do whatever it can to help Greece, Turkey and the Cypriots settle the Cyprus problems, and do so this year.”

During the Persian Gulf War and the months leading up to it, Bush developed a close relationship with Turkish President Turgut Ozal, with whom he will confer in Ankara and Istanbul. As Iraq’s northern neighbor, Turkey became a key player in the coalition Bush lined up against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Thus, the time spent Thursday with Mitsotakis, and a planned visit to the prime minister’s home today in Crete, is intended to demonstrate U.S. interest in Greece.

In addition, a White House official said, “with all the changes in Europe, people in the area felt they were being overlooked.”

“Greece and Turkey felt much of our focus was on the Central (European) front” of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, rather than on the Mediterranean, “and that they were NATO’s poor cousins.”

The visit to Athens is the third stop on a four-nation, eight-day tour that began in France on Saturday. It continued to London for the annual summit conference of the leading industrialized democracies and a meeting there Wednesday with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, at which they announced agreement on the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. The President returns to Washington on Monday, before leaving less than a week later for the just-announced summit in Moscow.