ERDOGAN PROVOKES, THREATENS AND DISPUTES
The government is in complete confusion against the increasingly provocative effort of Erdogan for escalation and direct, official dispute of Greek sovereignty and sovereign rights, wanting to turn Greece into a country of reduced sovereignty by Turkey.
–EMBARRASSMENT AND CONFUSION IN THE GOVERNMENT, AGAINST THE EXPANSIONISM OF TURKEY –”FATAL” MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS G. GERAPETRITIS
By KONSTANTINOS TSAKALOS
It is the culmination of a journey which started initially at Imia, continued with the Madrid Agreement and with the Athens Declaration, during which the doctrine of the “Blue Homeland” was built, which soon now will also acquire legal form and force, with the adoption of the new law by the Turkish Grand National Assembly.
Indicative of the confusion that prevails in the government are the statements of the Minister of Foreign Affairs George Gerapetritis himself but also the movements with the rushed “gathering” of the Patriots from Karpathos, to which Turkey had reacted very intensely with demarches towards Athens and also to NATO. George Gerapetritis, speaking at the Circle of Ideas Conference, at the same time that he expressed his absolute dedication to the dialogue process with Turkey and praised the benefits of the “calm waters” brought by the Athens Declaration, rushed simultaneously to state that we are probably ahead of an upgrade of the tension, depending on the move that Turkey will make. And he supplemented that we are at a difficult crossroads, as “if the underlying cause that produces the crises is not solved, namely the delimitation of the continental shelf and the Exclusive Economic Zone, sustainable peace will not exist.”
Also, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who with inexplicable optimism had undertaken three years ago to lead a different effort for talks with Turkey with the object of delimiting maritime zones, which would be based no longer on the exploratory dialogue of the teams that each country defined, but on the direct secret talks of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, admits publicly that there is no prospect of approach.
After three years of whitewashing Turkey in the international environment, in the EU and in the USA, the head of Greek diplomacy finds what was known at least 20 years ago: That the talks for a co-compromis are doomed to failure, as long as Greece, of course, remains in its correct position that nothing else can be referred to The Hague except the issue of delimitation of the continental shelf / EEZ.
And this because Turkey sets as a condition for any move –without guaranteeing that it will automatically accept The Hague– the examination in the form of a package not only of the delimitation, but simultaneously of the issues of Greek territorial waters and also of the very sovereignty of Greece, such as the “gray zones”, as well as the right of the country to have an undisturbed and complete defense system for all Greek territory, which includes of course all the Greek islands.
And while Turkey is preparing for the big move in Greek-Turkish relations with the adoption of the new law, Athens avoids sending the warning message that is owed, namely that such an initiative will lead to undermining the approach process and will have consequences on a European level as well. Instead, it sends the wrong message with the decision announced by KYSEA last Monday for the withdrawal of the Patriots from Karpathos and Didymoteicho.
Turkey had reacted very intensely to the relocation of the Patriots to Karpathos, considering that Greece exploited the circumstance of the war in Iran in order to violate the supposed obligation of demilitarization of the islands. And this decision for the Patriots came while the war in Iran has not yet finished and, on the contrary, a new escalation of it is probable, so the reason that had led to the installation of the missile system in Karpathos has anything but disappeared.
Justifiably, and despite the statements that it is a rearrangement of the operational capabilities of the country based on a plan, this move was interpreted as a signal of appeasement towards Ankara, at the time when the leak of information about the now notorious bill of the “Blue Homeland” peaks. Of course, after the first negative comments in Greece, the Ministry of National Defense rushed to leak that as soon as the Patriots leave from Karpathos, a pair of Mirage 2000-5 will be relocated to the island.
All these, unfortunately, show the lack of a comprehensive policy towards Turkey, which has been abandoned either into the hands of the Prime Minister, who boasts that he is the only one who can pick up a phone in an hour of crisis –without explaining to us of course to whom he will address–, or to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who rests on the fact that he has a channel of communication with Hakan Fidan. The government boasts about the alliances it has concluded in recent years, but it is clear that there are serious problems there too. After Macron’s visit, where the outgoing President of France mentioned many times that he will stand next to Greece, the spokesperson of the French Presidency rushed to clarify that these statements did not concern Turkey, which is a “friendly country of France”. Last week, in fact, it became known that the Turkish company that manufactures the Bayraktar made an agreement with a large French drone company, from which Athens was bargaining to procure.
Also, there were leaks that France has given the green light so that Turkey can also participate in the co-production with Italy of the SAMP/T Mamba missile system. Egypt, a close ally of Greece and a counterweight to Turkish influence in the Eastern Mediterranean, has already revived relations with Ankara and, according to information, will also be found in the initiative of Turkey – Pakistan – Qatar – Saudi Arabia for a Muslim alliance on the standards of NATO.
As for the Gulf countries (UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia), it is obvious that, with all three countries having exceptionally good relations with Ankara and having invested large capitals in recent years in the Turkish economy, but also based on the new priorities they have after the war in Iran, Greece will have very little to expect from them. As for the USA, with the erratic choices of Donald Trump and his known, expressed admiration for Tayyip Erdogan, the involvement of Washington in Greek-Turkish relations will rather be catastrophic, given also the allergy of the American President to anything that has a relationship with international legality and international law. Israel remains a strong ally, as long as its confrontation with Turkey lasts, of course; however, beyond the sale of defense material to Greece and Cyprus, it is completely unlikely to get involved in a Greek-Turkish confrontation, when it has so many fronts open and of course it would not have the intention to open new fronts with Turkey, which can press it both in Syria and Lebanon as well as in Gaza.
The self-complacent statements and the reassuring messages are obviously not enough for the country to face the storm which is coming after the “calm waters” in Greek-Turkish relations. Nor, of course, the treatment of Greek-Turkish relations with the sole criterion of poll indicators. And the illusions that dominate in the government, unfortunately, do not constitute a good guide and advisor…
TO PARON
