Earthquakes, usually the most costly in human lives of all natural disasters, tend to be utterly unrelieved calamities. But the deaths of some 18,000 Turks on August 17, 1999, may be remembered as a sacrifice that inspired a kind of miracle.
Earthquakes, usually the most costly in human lives of all natural disasters, tend to be utterly unrelieved calamities. But the deaths of some 18,000 Turks on August 17, 1999, may be remembered as a sacrifice that inspired a kind of miracle. Measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale, the quake devastated the grim but bustling industrial city of Izmit and the packed tenements around the nearby Turkish naval base of Gölcük on the Sea of Marmara. Across the Bosporus in Istanbul, now the most populous city in mainland Europe, shoddily built apartment blocks crumbled from the shock. The miracle occurred when Turkey´s tragedy inspired an outpouring of human sympathy and official aid from its neighbor and long-time nemesis, Greece, which was swiftly reciprocated by Turkey when Greece lost 120 lives in its own earthquake three weeks later. The aid also shifted something fundamental in the power politics of Europe. "All ideological arguments were flattened by the earthquake," said Turkey's young minister of tourism, Erkan Mumçu. "Lying under the rubble is the Turkish political and administrative system."
Only two years earlier, Greece and Turkey had been on the brink of war over the ownership of some uninhabited rocks in the Aegean Sea. But now the mayors of Greek islands whose prosperity rests on military bases that guard against the Turkish threat were taking up collections to help their neighbors. When Turkey's health minister, Osman Durmus, declared that his country had no need of foreign help, least of all from Greece, he was widely denounced as an ignorant buffoon. "Thank You, Friends," ran the headline, printed in the Greek alphabet, in Turkey's largest-selling newspaper, Huriyet. Within the year, Greece and Turkey had signed a number of agreements to cooperate on tourism and protect the environment, to safeguard investments and fight organized crime. The Greek and Turkish foreign ministers exchanged friendly visits, and bilateral talks began on military cooperation. Above all, after long blocking Turkey´s hopes of eventual membership in the prosperity club of the European Union (EU), Greece reversed course. Foreign Minister George Papandreou declared it was time for his country to bury the hatchet and "pull the cart" to help Turkey into Europe.