GREECE/TURKEY: Turkey and Greece pledged yesterday to leave old rivalries behind and seek a "strategic partnership" at the start of a landmark visit to Athens by the Turkish Prime Minister, Mr Tayyip Erdogan.
Despite the failure last month of a UN plan to reunite Cyprus's Turkish and Greek communities, Mr Erdogan's visit crowned a dramatic thaw in relations since 1999.
"Let's leave the past behind us and look to the future. Let's build the future together," Mr Erdogan told a joint news conference with the Greek Prime Minister, Mr Costas Karamanlis.
He said he supported the Greek prime minister's idea of a "strategic partnership".
Mr Karamanlis, in turn, repeated his backing for Turkey's EU application.
Mr Erdogan's visit was not expected to bring any specific progress on territorial disputes.
Mr Erdogan, who is accompanied by 100 Turkish entrepreneurs, has already built a good working relationship with Mr Karamanlis, a fellow conservative, and both men are keen to keep the Cyprus dispute from upsetting their rapprochement.
Greek Cypriots rejected the plan in an April 24th referendum, but Athens was quick to say the failure would not affect ties with Ankara.
The two nations have a long history of mistrust and enmity. In modern times, the two NATO members have almost come to war on several occasions over territorial disputes, including Cyprus.
But the rapprochement of recent years increased bilateral trade, seen jumping to $2 billion this year from $500 million two years ago.
Turkey wants EU leaders to agree at a summit in December to set a date for the start of entry talks, long delayed over its poor human rights record.
Asked whether Turkey plans to reopen a Greek Orthodox seminary near Istanbul, Mr Erdogan said: "(This issue) is on our agenda and we are making efforts to solve this problem because we have the political will and we don't want to carry such problems into the future." The seminary, one of the main obstacles to Turkey's efforts to convince the EU it allows full religious freedom, was shut down in the 1970s.