Italy and Turkey: Between Europe and the Middle East (1969-1993)

After the World War II, Italy's relations with Turkey mirrored the common interests for political and strategic re-evaluation of the Mediterranean area for common security and the need to «redesign a development strategy» in the Balkan area. Relationships with Turkey should be read in the context of its Western-oriented foreign policy, and therefore the consensus with Italy was easy: this explains how the Italian government was inclusive of Turkish regimes, characterized by elements of authoritarianism. Turkey became, in those years, a solid, albeit marginal, part of the political and military structure that the United States and its allies built to safeguard democracy and free enterprise. This constituted a radical discontinuity with regard to Mustafa Kemal's foreign policy, which was devoted to prudent neutrality. With the Détente between East and West, relations with Turkey showed a positive evolution. In this period the need to give more space to a Mediterranean and Middle Eastern policy emerged: in this framework, friendship between the two countries was considered an important factor, coupled with the increase in trade and technical cooperation. Frequent visits sealed these intentions and the solution, though partial, of the Trieste issue in 1954 dissolved the shadows which were affecting bilateral relations. Only the Cyprus crisis engulfed the relationship with Turkey. Cyprus problem posed a very high risk of turning from an internal issue to an international crisis. In particular, the contrasts, then turned into open conflict, between Greek and Turkish ethnic elements could have contributed to make less secure the NATO sector of the East of the Mediterranean, of which Greece and Turkey were part. This situation led to an undeclared conflict among the two countries, both members of the Atlantic Alliance. Although, the convergence between Italy and Turkey on Mediterranean issues continued. The two governments expressed a common line of equidistance in the Arab-Israeli conflict, with the newly conceived objective of being able to act as mediators. Despite the military coup d'état in September 1980 and the consequent decline in relations between Ankara and the European Community, Turkey's strategic importance led OECD and IMF to provide funds: Italy is ranked third in consistency ($ 115 million), after the United States and Germany. The only painful note that remained in the relations between Italy and Turkey in this period was the role of Ankara in the European Community: on the Italian side «there are no political and economic prejudices». In the Nineties there was a possibility for a special cooperation between Italy and Turkey within the Community, both in view of the creation of a Mediterranean axis, which balanced the growing importance of the Northern axis after the unification of Germany, both in view of the protection from demographic pressure from the Southern Mediterranean, considered as a threat. Other issues which were discussed in that period were: the geopolitical role of Turkey in Central Asia, the guarantees of minorities and, naturally, the situation in the Mediterranean area.