Does Turkey truly want to attack Greece militarily, or simply to drag it into a comprehensive negotiation based on its demands from a position of power, after a controllable military clash?
'The circles encouraging Greece to deploy arms on islands with a demilitarised status have been urged to come to their senses, the MSG statement said, in a thinly veiled reference to the US.
Mitsotakis addressed the Turkish people directly, highlighting the importance of peace and harmonious co-existence, so that his message would reach Turkish society unfiltered, through the social media.
Mitsotakis said that Athens will unswervingly defend its red lines against Turkish revisionism and threats against the territorial integrity of Greece’s Aegean islands, which Turkey has persistently been challenging.
Ankara has repeatedly been criticised by international players over policies that aim at the violation of Greece’s sovereign rights, most notably over its islands.
In terms of efforts to commit Turkey to a specific framework for dialogue, it is mandatory that we not squander opportunities when they arise.
During separate visits to Athens, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna denounced Turkish violations and the climate of instability that they create.
Turkey is dangerously escalating tensions, its aggressive rhetoric is spinning out of control, and it behaves as if it is preparing military operations against Greece.
Ironically, the article is entirely self-contradictory as it offers quotes of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that amount to a clear threat of a declaration of war against Greece.
There has been a record number of of Turkish violations of Greek airspace and territorial waters so far this year, and Ankara’s lays claim, counter to international law, to dozens Greek islands and islets.
Athens must prepare for the prospect of Ankara broadening its alliances and of Erdogan being re-elected to yet another five-year term, as even if he loses, Turkey’s policy toward Greece will not change radically.
Erdogan is stepping up his attacks against Greece by disputing international treaties, exploiting the refugee issue, and going as far as to characterise our country as a “safe haven for terrorists”.
The Greek side is obliged to be, as it is, in a constant state of readiness, and to combine a clear and fine line of composure with a firm demonstration of decisiveness.
The overarching aim of sending the “Abdulhamid Han” for natural gas and oil exploration in the Eastern Mediterranean is to forcefully assert the Turkish dogma of the “Blue Homeland”.
Erdogan believes that he can achieve his ambitions by blackmailing NATO, invading Syria, threatening Greece, and sending drill ships to the Mediterranean, but he is making a serious mistake.
Even if the international community would not tolerate a Turkish provocation in the Eastern Mediterranean, given the current confluence of events, we should not remain complacent.
For years, Ali Babacan was the moderate, European-oriented face of Turkey, serving as Ankara’s chief negotiator in the country’s EU accession talks.
In this fluid political terrain, it is important for Greece to maintain clear judgment and calm and make strategic choices, monitoring changes without compromising its values.
In line with the decades-long US position, the State Department urged the two NATO allies, Greece and Turkey, to resolve their disputes diplomatically, and to avoid inflammatory rhetoric.
Over the years, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly made the hand sign of the ultra-nationalist, neo-fascist, and Islamist ‘Grey Wolves’.
Ankara believes that the Turkish nation is suffocating within the borders of the state and that it now has the power and means to expand its sphere of influence.
Erdogan believes that the leaders of Sweden and Finland can “commit themselves” to extradite Kurdish and Turkish expats granted asylum whom he accuses of terrorism.
The general consensus among observers was that Biden had offered assurances that he will try to push the sale of 40 F-16s to Turkey through Congress.
Erdogan clearly indicated that he got what he wanted from the deal regarding Sweden and Finland, and that declared he would leave the summit with his 'hands full'.
Athens is focused on whether Erdogan will table his demands for the demilitarisation of Greek Eastern Aegean islands at the ongoing NATO summit.
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said today that President Joe Biden “may well” meet with the Turkish president on the margins of tomorrow's NATO summit.
'There are the exploratory talks that we would like to complete. There are confidence-building-measures and meetings in the NATO framework,” Turkey's defence minister said.
Katerina Sakellaropoulou stressed that Greece has approved imposing all EU and NATO sanctions packages against Russia, and Turkey has imposed none.
'Greece has proven that it is ready to defend its sovereignty and its sovereign rights,' Mitsotakis said during remarks at a health conference today.
Turkey is a dangerous, revisionist power, and it is not just Erdogan. The country’s entire political establishment espouses the same aggressive claims against Greece.
The characteristics of the current phase in Greek-Turkish relations is hardly unfamiliar to Greece, as it is part of a diachronic blame game.
'We encourage our NATO Allies, including Greece and Turkey, to work together to maintain peace and security in the region and resolve differences diplomatically.'
Ankara is maintaining tensions, fully confirming what Greece has told the EU and the US regarding Turkey’s violations and its revisionist geopolitical posture.
Turkey's autocratic leader is an exponent of contemporary revisionism and cannot understand that Ankara cannot have its cake and eat it.
It has been apparent for some time now that the 'new sultan' of Ankara, in his effort to divert the attention of Turkish citizens from the continually worsening economic situation, has adopted a two-pronged approach to foreign policy.
Greece is a peaceful Western country, but without being pliant and complaisant. Through deterrence and decisiveness it sends the analogous signals. Through constant diplomatic pressure, it reminds one that Greece’s borders are the EU’s borders.
It remains to be seen what will be the policy of the new German government, after the departure of Angela Merkel and the appointment of the Green party’s Annalena Baerbock as the country’s foreign minister.
The historic 23 November plunge of the Turkish lira was triggered by the decision of Recep Tayyip Erdogan the previous day to declare an 'economic war of independence'.
Not only with Erdogan and the neo-Ottoman dogma that he follows, but also historically, Turkey in every domestic crisis has proven that that it shifts and shapes it into a dangerous, extroverted stratagem.
The map, which depicts Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman ideations and foreign interventions presents as “Turkish territories” a long list of countries from the Balkans and Central Asia and Russia all the way to China with its Muslim Uyghur minority.
Sources say that the Joint Chiefs of Staff are closely coordinating with the chief of Greek Police and the chief of the Hellenic Coast Guard in order to ensure the most effective possible monitoring of the borders and deterrence.
The popularity of the once most popular Turkish politician is plummeting, and the economic problems of the “regional power” are constantly growing. Inflation and poverty are battering his working class base of support.
Erdogan has been harshly critiicised by the opposition Republican People’s Party and a segment of the Turkish media over his failure to secure a US commitment on how Ankara will recoup the $1.4bn that it has paid for the purchase of American next-generation F-35 joint strike fighter jets.
Erdogan has repeatedly said in the past that the French president is in need of psychiatric evaluation, has lambasted France’s historic role in Algeria, and has gone as far as to urge his compatriots to boycott French products.
'President Biden reaffirmed our defense partnership and Turkey’s importance as a NATO Ally, but noted U.S. concerns over Turkey’s possession of the Russian S-400 missile system. He also emphasized the importance of strong democratic institutions,' the White House readout said.
The report says that Cavusoglu was on a trip to South Korea when Erdogan issued his instructions for the expulsion and that the foreign minister asked him to delay his decision until his return two days later, 25 October, so that they could discuss the matter both face-to-face.
On 18 October, the US Embassy in Ankara posted on its website the joint statement calling for the release of businessman, philanthropist, and rights activist Osman Kavala, whose imprisonment led to a ruling against Turkey in the European Court of Human Rights, which ordered his release.
The nationalist opposition, which for over a decade has been pushing Erdogan to claim “the islands that Greece occupied” now is pressuring him to send the Turkish seismic vessel Oruc Reis to research areas included in the illegal Libya-Turkey memorandum delimiting their EEZs.
“These issues in the Eastern Mediterranean cannot be resolved through military confrontation. It would be better for France to act as a mediator. France over the last two years has been behaving as a bully toward Turkey. This is unacceptable. Turkey is not a small country. It is a regional power,” said Gurdeniz .
Biden has made no secret of his consternation with Erdogan on a range of issues from his purchase of the S-400 Russian missile systems in defiance of the US to Ankara’s role in Libya, and its hostile and expansionary policy in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Though first and foremost his role is that of spiritual leader, traditionally the Archbishop of America also is the informal leader of the Greek-American community, which numbers about three million but carries greater political weight than its numbers would indicate.
Though Erdogan’s rhetoric was diplomatic, a far cry from his and his ministers’ frequent outbursts of late against Greece and Cyprus, he clearly articulated his core claims, which have been rejected by strong geopolitical players – the UN, the US, the EU, and Russia - as violating international law.
'I returned it [Hagia Sophia] to those who are its owners since the time of Mehmed the Conqueror,” he declared. “We determined our path well. Our path is not the same as theirs [the opposition]. Either I will take Byzantium or Byzantium will take me.'
“Athens’ argument is that cooperation with Ankara is necessary because the two countries and the broader region may suffer serious repercussions from a huge refugee flow from Afghanistan and so they are confronted with the same problem,” Greek government sources say.
Akinci made the bombshell statement in an interview with the Turkish Cypriot daily Yeni Duzen. He said the agreement would have put settlement talks back on track.
The diplomacy of kicking the can down the road is not merely counter-productive. It is deleterious. The previously much-touted “status quo” no longer exists. What is needed now is a fighting spirit, decisiveness, and flexibility.
Some analysts believe Erdogan’s maximalist position in support of a two-state solution is designed to achieve a loose confederation, (effectively Ankara’s position in prior settlement talks), definitively abandoning the UN's bi-zonal federation framework.
Ankara knows all too well that it will not suffer sanctions from the EU, due to Berlin’s stance on the migration problem, or from the US, due to Turkey’s important geostrategic position.
Erdogan's voters are repaid with nationalistic claptrap, with the aim of healing in this manner some of the economic wounds in the everyday life of Turkey’s citizens.
Over the last decades Greece and Turkey had alternating periods of lesser or greater tensions. Hence, a coldly calculated approach to diplomacy is one of the greatest advantages and the Greek side should cultivate it.
The two leaders reportedly discussed the migration-refugee issue and the Greek side underlined that the two countries can cooperate as long as the type of provocations we saw in March, 2020, are avoided.
Still, Turkey maintains the second largest army in NATO and remains a critical, regional US ally and undoubtedly the difficult path toward a modus vivendi is pressing for both sides.
Circumstances necessitate that we see this Summit as a restart of NATO, with Greece as an organic member, after the erratic Trump administration.
The main obstacle to an understanding has been the fact that over the decades Ankara has vastly expanded its claims against Greece, ranging from territorial claims to Turkey’s efforts to encroach on Greece’s (and Cyprus’) EEZ.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu’s five-hour visit to Thrace today naturally once again included references to a “Turkish minority”, including during his visit with the two illegal muftis of Thrace.
Aside from the EU [including Germany, which has always maintained a particularly friendly stance toward Turkey], Turkey's two-state proposal has been openly rejected by the US and Russia.
The era when Turkey developed its comprehensive aggressive strategy unhindered, ignored its past and displayed outbursts from high-level government officials with the air of a pampered child of great powers is over.
"Over the decades Armenian immigrants have enriched the United States in countless ways, but they have never forgotten the tragic history ... We honor their story. We see that pain. We affirm the history.' Biden said.
The defence of Greece’s rights and the strict invocation of international treaties and the obligations that they produce for all parties can bring only benefits.
In a Reuters poll, most economists had predicted no change to the one-week policy rate this week, but saw easing from around mid-year, to settle at 15% by year-end.
The prospect of high-level political negotiations between Athens and Ankara has fueled concerns among analysts that Greece may make concessions that touch on national sovereignty.
Despite concerns over recent Turkish backsliding on human rights, the EU has applauded Ankara’s recent withdrawal of vessels operating in disputed waters and restarting talks with Greece.
The leadership change in the US and the fluid situation in the Southeastern Mediterranean aggravated the problems posed by Erdogan and that creates the prospect of our country falling into a trap.
Διαχειριστής - Διευθυντής: Λευτέρης Θ. Χαραλαμπόπουλος
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