ANKARA: Disputes over Cyprus and the Aegean will test Turkey’s carefully nurtured rapprochement with Greece in coming months, but the calm handling of a warplane crash this week suggests they can avoid a crisis, analysts said.

Turkish and Greek F-16 jets collided over the Aegean Sea on Tuesday, sparking mutual recriminations and a warning from Athens that Ankara’s drive to join the European Union could suffer if it did not change its stance on sensitive issues.

But swift communication between the foreign ministries and militaries of the two countries ensured that the incident — in which the Greek pilot died — did not escalate into a major row.

“This latest incident shows progress has been made, because it did not lead to a souring of the climate... It creates a positive precedent,” Greek Deputy Foreign Minister Evripides Stylianides told Reuters in an interview in Athens.

In Ankara, too, the mood was conciliatory.

“Our relations will not fall victim to an incident of this kind,” said Mehmet Dulger, head of the Turkish parliament’s foreign affairs commission, noting that Greece’s new foreign minister, Dora Bakoyanni, was due to visit Turkey next week.

“Relations will continue to get better because the two sides have a huge interest in working together, on the economy too.”

Commerce and tourism between the ancient rivals across the Aegean are booming, with bilateral trade expected to more than double to 5 billion euros ($6.4 billion) in the next two years.

Greece’s National Bank recently bought a 46 per cent stake in Turkey’s Finansbank. Greece’s Eurobank agreed to buy a majority stake in Turkey’s Tekfenbank.

Turkey is a key transit country for Greece and the rest of the EU for oil and natural gas from the Middle East and the former Soviet Union. Athens also needs close cooperation with Ankara in fighting illegal immigration and cross-border crime.

For its part, Turkey values Greece’s strong support for its EU bid, especially after key allies Gerhard Schroeder and Silvio Berlusconi lost power in Germany and Italy respectively. Another ally, Britain’s Tony Blair, is now politically weaker at home.

Yet nationalism continues to bedevil Ankara-Athens ties.

Tuesday’s crash occurred because the two countries disagree over the delineation of their maritime border. Years of closed-door talks have failed to close this diplomatic gap.

Cyprus poses an even more urgent and intractable problem. Greece has close ties with the Greek Cypriots, who run Cyprus’ internationally recognised government and represent the divided east Mediterranean island inside the EU.

Ankara backs a breakaway Turkish Cypriot enclave on the island. Despite EU pressure, it says it will only recognise Cyprus if the two sides can agree a broad peace settlement that allows the Turkish Cypriots to keep running their own affairs.

“We are heading for a crisis in Turkey-EU relations this autumn over the Cyprus issue,” said Hasan Unal, a nationalist-minded academic at Ankara’s Bilkent University.

He said the Athens-Ankara rapprochement was “artificial”, arguing it was driven by Greece’s effort to squeeze concessions out of Turkey in return for backing Ankara’s EU membership bid.

“The Greeks are now starting to realise that even this (pro-EU) Turkish government cannot make big concessions over the Aegean or Cyprus ... so they are falling back on their traditional policy of antagonism,” he said.

Unal noted that opinion polls show ordinary Greeks remain strongly opposed to allowing Turkey into the EU, despite the stance of Greece’s diplomatic and business elite.—Reuters