HISTORY

How it started…

A proposal for a Greek-Turkish women’s peace network

In 1996 there occurred a territorial dispute between the Turkish and Greek governments over the island of Imea / Kardak. Provoked by the absurdity of such a dangerous stand-off over a barren rock in the ocean, Margarita Papandreou, feminist president of KEDE, the Centre for Research and Action on Peace, in Athens, made a telephone contact with Zeynep Oral, writer, peace activist and one of the co-founders of Turkish-Greek Friendship Association, in Istanbul, to do something together to prevent violent solution of the conflicts between the two countries, that resulted in a meeting of Turkish and Greek women in (July) 1997, and eventually the formation of the, Winpeace (Women’s Initiative for Peace of Greece and Turkey) Platform was born. Some of the members were old friends from the 1980s, ‘the anti-cruise-and-pershing days’, when women of all NATO countries had met in Brussels in Women for a Meaningful Summit, protesting the deployment of US missiles in Europe.

After the initial contact, Zeynep Oral and Margarita Papandreou have organized several meetings with other women activists in their countries, for over three months, and a call was made to all NGOs, to become a part of the initiative. The first official meeting between Greek and Turkish women was arranged in Athens, November 28-29, 1997. The meeting was carried out in a friendly environment, and a concrete, fruitful discussion was held. The details for a larger meeting of women’s delegation were spelled out and a statement of purpose was development by both sides. A draft of the minutes of the November preparatory meeting was prepared.

According to our opinion and our initial assessment our initiative is useful and productive, and we anticipate that its impact will be multidimensional. It is easier for women to focus on many issues that are common and frictionless, and unite us more than the issues that divide us. But even if we are dealing with differences, we manage in a different way. Our way of thinking, inspired by women’s values on preserving life, promoting equality and safeguarding peace, inevitably help to build confidence and trust, elements urgently needed in order to reverse the dangerous roads of contest and confrontation between our two countries, and to achieve true security.

In the beginning of the new millennium human values must be dominant. Our values for peaceful conflict resolution are advantageous for this purpose. We are able to create better relations being remote from official bureaucratic inflexibility, and from competitive and powerful actions that can end up in irreversible results. Void of tension and insecurity, a sincere dialogue with mutual respect and understanding is on of our methods of developing the foundations for a culture of peace.