This post summarises the main findings of Spyridon Bouzoukis’s paper, ‘The Greek decision to pursue a more active policy in the Middle East, 1955-56: Cyprus, the Baghdad Pact, and the need to counter Turkey’, which won the 2026 joint Greek Politics Specialist Group (GPSG) and Hellenic Observatory (HO) Best Paper Prize competition. The full paper has been published in the GreeSE Discussion Paper Series and can be read here.
In this article, I revisit the factors that led to Greece’s ‘opening’ to the Arab world from 1956, when Konstantinos Karamanlis rose to power after his electoral victory on 19 February 1956. The principal argument is that, besides the need to rally support for the Cyprus question in the United Nations (UN), protect Greek communities in the Middle East, and safeguard the status of the Greek-Orthodox Patriarchates of the East, Athens’ decision to develop stronger relations with the Arabs also stemmed from the need to counter Turkey’s enhanced regional position within the Baghdad Pact since February 1955. The analysis is based on several primary sources, including the archives of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Greek literature considers 1956 as the year of Greece’s foreign policy ‘reshaping’ on several levels (Hatzivassiliou, 1997). This analysis argues that in 1955-56, Greece realized that the security of its so-called ‘national interests’ in the Eastern Mediterranean, particularly in relation to Cyprus, was connected to developments in the Arab world, as well as the wider regional balance between itself and Turkey. Indeed, from 1954, when Cyprus became an international matter, until 1958, when Greece made its last appeal at the UN on the question, Greece did not share common interests in the Eastern Mediterranean with two of its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), namely Great Britain and Turkey. Britain strongly opposed recognising and granting self-determination to Cyprus, which would lead to its union with Greece, and, until 1957, aimed to keep the island under its domination to remain a great power. Under such circumstances, after agreeing with Egypt to withdraw from its base in the Suez Canal in 1954, Britain fully supported the Baghdad Pact, established in February 1955 between Turkey and Iraq, to retain its rapidly declining influence in the Middle East. Turkey also did not share Greece’s views over Cyprus. It became confident in opposing Greece’s demands, especially after enhancing its regional position within the Baghdad Pact and its strategic utility to Britain. This contributed to the anti-Greek pogrom of September 1955, which sharply deteriorated Greek-Turkish relations. Notably, since its establishment on 24 February 1955, the Baghdad Pact, the cornerstone of British strategy in the Middle East, expanded in April, September, and October, with the inclusion of Britain, Pakistan, and Iran, respectively. Therefore, while Greece challenged Britain and Turkey over the Cyprus matter, the potential further expansion of the Baghdad Pact would bury hopes of Arab support in its next appeals at the UN. Indeed, in December 1955, London invited Jordan into the Baghdad Pact but failed eventually. As the Greek Ambassador in Beirut, Gheorgios Seferiades, noted, after the establishment of the Baghdad Pact, ‘Lebanon was showing signs of weakening, and the situation in Syria had not yet stabilized’. Hence, he continued, ‘the neighbouring Arab region is of vital importance to us and not only must we maintain its friendship with all our strength, but we must also protect it from influences hostile to us regardless of the broader framework of our foreign policy’.[1] Other diplomats, such as Nikolaos Chatzivasiliou, Ion Alexandros-Tziras, Spyros Theotokis, and Dimitrios Bitsios, agreed with Seferiades.
In that context, after the Baghdad Pact was completed in October 1955 with the inclusion of Iran, Greece took initiatives to counter Turkey in the Middle East and, if possible, to weaken the Baghdad Pact. More specifically, Greece participated as a member in the second Beirut conference from 17 to 27 December, which aimed to reinforce economic cooperation between the Arab and South Asian countries. Additionally, Greece showed strong interest in hosting the third summit in Athens in May 1956, after the second conference failed. However, the third summit did not take place. Nevertheless, Greece aimed not only to participate in such deliberations, where Turkey was also involved, but also to undertake a leading role in redressing the division of the Arab world, particularly between Egypt and Iraq, over the creation of an economic organization, which would be engaged with the economic development of the Middle East and South Asia. For Athens, this organization could function as a counterweight to the Baghdad Pact and Turkey, not leaving it ‘alone and unopposed to extend its influence on our southern flank and among states very friendly to us’.[2] Hence, during this period, in 1955-56, a trend emerged in Greek Middle Eastern policy that would be pursued in the following years: cultivating relations with the Arabs and diplomatically isolating Turkey in the region. This new policy began with Grigorios Kassimatis’ tour of Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon in March 1956 and would be fully developed under the new Foreign Minister, Evangelos Averoff-Tossizza, from May. Notably, this policy, though not shared by Greece’s allies, especially the United States of America (USA), succeeded in reducing Turkey’s intransigent stance on the Cyprus matter, leading to its conclusion in early 1959 and Cyprus’ independence the following year.
This paper concludes that in 1955-56, Greece realized it could not depend solely on NATO to secure its Eastern Mediterranean interests, since other members of the Alliance might not share Greek views or even have contrasting interests there. This remains timely today, as the Greek-Turkish competition has expanded in the Aegean. Consequently, since Greece’s interests also connect to the wider regional balance in the Middle East, Greece must keep an eye on Turkish moves.
[1] Archive of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs (hereafter AGMFA), File 81/1/1956, Doc. 79, ‘On Diplomatic Capabilities of Greece in the Middle East’, Seferiades (Beirut) to Foreign Ministry, 10 January 1956.
[2] AGMFA, File 81/1/1956, Doc. 2, ‘Economic Conference of the States of the Middle and Near East’, Bitsios (Athens), 31 December 1955.
The views expressed in this blog post are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the Greek Politics Specialist Group (GPSG) or the Political Studies Association (PSA)
