Turkish-Greek relations and Greece?s view on Turkey's EU membership after 1999: The sample of Thessaly University

Greece, until 1999 has been one of the most important obstacles during Turkey?s EU process by vetoing Turkey's EU membership and the possible financial aid from EU. At the same time, until this period Greece has hampered the development of relations between the two countries by implementing the policy of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" to realize its own policies. Especially after the capture of Abdullah Ocalan at Greece embassy in Kenya in 1999, once again the relations got real tense which later on came to the softening process of mutual dialogue with the efforts made by foreign ministers George Papandreou and Ismail Cem. Afterwards Greece has transformed the policy of vetoing Turkey's EU membership into a support policy.The aim of the thesis in the light of all this, after 1999 how and why Greece?s barrier before Turkey's EU membership has turned into a support for it? Then again during this period within the process of dialogue, how do we explain the role of earthquakes in the two countries? What is the role of the EU in these relations? to find answers to these questions.While searching for answers to these questions it is aimed to analyze the Greece?s view for Turkey's EU membership, and in order to evaluate the existing problems between Turkey and Greece the survey method was applied to 120 students in the city of Volos in Greece.As a result of this survey what came out was that the students do not think Turkey would become a member of EU, the most important issue between the two countries is the problem of Cyprus, continuation of the deadlock on the Cyprus problem is the most important obstacle for Turkey's EU process, between Turkey and Greece having a long history and mutual distrust are the most important factors affecting relations between Turkey and Greece and in spite of the developed dialogue environment Turkey is still not perceived as a "friendly" country, but as for the future of the relations it is suggested that there are expectations on that.