Today in History – 14 September

Turkish-Greek Pact of Cordial Entente

The problems instigated by the exchange of population agreement drafted as an appendix to the Treaty of Lausanne were completely resolved by a treaty signed between Turkey and Greece on June 10, 1930. Upon the invitation of Prime Minister İsmet İnönü, Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos visited Turkey between October 27 and 31, 1930. Aiming to amicably resolve the relationship between the two countries, “The Turkish-Greek Treaty of Friendship, Neutrality, Reconciliation, and Arbitration” was signed on the third day of the visit on October 30th. The treaty was also added a protocol on the limitation of naval forces. The treaty and the protocol went into effect once the approved documents were exchanged during Prime Minister İsmet İnönü’s visit to Greece on October 5, 1931.

In order to take their friendship, which they established with the treaty they signed in 1930, a step further and to prevent Bulgaria’s revisionist policies, Turkey and Greece signed a Pact of Cordial Entente (Pacte d’Entente Cordiale) during Greek Prime Minister Tsaldaris and Minister of Foreign Affairs Maximos’ visit to Ankara on September 14, 1933. Coming into power shortly after that date, Greek Prime Minister Venizelos visited İstanbul on September 25, 1933. With the arrival King Alexander of Yugoslavia on October 4-5, Atatürk, King Alexander, and Venizelos held a meeting.

Turkey unilaterally revoked the majority of the articles of the Turkish-Greek Treaty of Friendship during the 1963-64 Cyprus crisis.