Changing face of Balkan politics

George Papandreou and Ismail Cem have established a remarkable rapport

By Misha Glenny

I'm very fond of Albania but I've always had a problem with their olives. For reasons which I've never cared to investigate, Albanian olives and olive oil taste rancid to the point of making me gag.

I was still recovering from one especially potent olive that had concealed itself in a feta salad the night before when I climbed into a Greek Army Chinook transporter helicopter one bright morning recently.

I thought the journey over the northern Pindus combined with the traces of poisonous olive would be enough to hospitalise me. But then I'd never flown over the northern Pindus before. It was a breathtaking experience, the perfect olive antidote.

The village's few inhabitants and their sheep seemed to cling to the rocks as a seemingly natural feature

I had only known these peaks and valleys from obscure military maps I'd consulted during my studies of the route used by Mussolini for the invasion of Greece in 1940.

A low point in Italy's profoundly chequered history of military achievement - crack units became bogged down and then defeated by swelling rivers and Greek valour.

There was not a trace of cloud as we flew over a perfectly circular lake right at the very top of one mountain. In the water's centre was a small island with a clump of trees, giving the impression of a huge eye staring out into space.

Nothing but still beauty until one point close to another peak, an utterly mysterious village - there were no roads leading to it and its few inhabitants and their sheep seemed to cling to the rocks as a seemingly natural feature.

Striking town

Much of southern Albania remains isolated in the 19th century.

The helicopter headed towards Gjirokaster, a very old town which is striking but weird. In the middle of the town, there is a steep promontory, at whose top sits the medieval castle. This is in turn flanked by two other promontories on which part of the town is built.

The shift in Greek policy ... has seen the government in Athens exchange the role of regional bully for regional nice guy

But most buildings are in the thin strips between them, making it appear from the air as though the town is oscillating.

Gjirokaster is also known by its Greek name, Ayirokastro and is the main centre of the Greek minority in Albania.

Until four years ago, the Albanian Government was implacably hostile to the Greek minority and its cultural aspirations.

Just to the west of Gjirokaster, there is a menacing village of what are by Albania's poverty-riddled standards rather wealthy houses.

The village goes by the rather mystically cleansing name, Lazareti, but is home to a clan family of ruthless gangsters who were essentially the executors of Tirana's anti-Greek policy which dogged Greek-Albanian relations until 1997.

Charm offensive

Now all that has changed. The Albanians are one of the recipients of an astonishing charm offensive, launched last year by the Greek Government, that is changing the face of Balkan politics.

The shift in Greek policy which has seen the government in Athens exchange the role of regional bully for regional nice guy has been largely obscured by the dramas and traumas of Bosnia and Kosovo.

Turkey's earthquake produced a friendship borne of tragedy

I was making the journey to Gjirokaster at the invitation of George Papandreou, the Greek foreign minister.

A few miles south of the city, he was welcomed by the Albanian Prime Minister, Ilir Meta, in the Greek-speaking village of Dervicani.

Papandreou was mobbed by the poverty-ridden Greeks to thank him for the spanking new cultural centre, built of the area's characteristic white stone and funded by the Greek Government.

As he entered the small village square, there was singing and cheering while otherwise entirely cynical Greek journalists and diplomats were weeping openly.

The campaign for the forthcoming general elections in Greece revolves around a familiar roll-call of usual suspects - unemployment, privatisation, pensions and the euro.

Crunch time

By Greek standards, it has been a strangely muted affair - no sign of the hysterically partisan election rallies which send supporters of the two main rivals, Pasok and New Democracy, into wild politically-induced trances.

Instead, the two leaders, Pasok's Costas Simitis, and ND's Kostas Karamanlis engaged in a television debate that was stage-managed to the point of jaw-dropping tedium.

This is a mightily boring election - for Greeks.

But for all Greece's neighbours, the poll represents a crunch moment in the Balkan year. Serbs, Albanians, Macedonians and Turks are all following the neck-and-neck race in Greece with eye-popping intensity.

For over the past year, George Papandreou and his Turkish counterpart, Ismail Cem, have established a remarkable rapport.

Remarkable rapport

When the terrible earthquake struck northern Turkey last August, Papandreou appeared on Greek television immediately with a dramatic appeal.

'I ask all Greeks who are able to do anything they can. Please help Turkey!'

The first foreign emergency team to arrive in Istanbul was a specialist unit from Greece, provoking an unprecedented outburst of gratitude from the Turkish public and media.

Papandreou and Cem have built on this friendship borne of tragedy.

In December, the Greeks dropped their objections to Turkey's application for EU membership, demolishing at a stroke the corner stone of Greek foreign policy of the last 20 years.

A constructive, friendly relationship between the two most powerful Balkan countries, Greece and Turkey, will have a much greater impact on the region than much of the international community's current efforts in Kosovo and elsewhere.

Will it flourish? Who knows. But I know a lot of people in the region who are keeping their fingers very tightly crossed.