Enough with Turkey!

Source: Hellenesonline

A highly alarming situation is in the making regarding the Greek-Turkish relations. The Turkish Air force provocations over the Aegean Sea have taken a turn for the worse, becoming more and more aggressive, with Turkish fighter pilots performing virtual bombing operations over the border Greek islands such as Agathonisi and Farmakonisi.

While there are only five months left to resume talks for Turkey’s progress towards its accession to the EU, progress based primarily on whether or not Turkey opened its ports and airports to ships and aircraft to the Republic of Cyprus, the well-known and extremely pro-Turkey Carl Bildt, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Sweden that presides over the council of the 27 members states, justifies the Turkish occupation of half of the island of Cyprus as a legitimate consequence of the junta coup of the Colonels against Archbishop Makarios, thus giving us an advance preview of the attitude of the EU presidency in December.

The government of «groomsman» Prime Minister Erdogan is making preparations to take the Turkish research vessel for oil explorations in the Greek continental shelf and the Exclusive Economic Zone, especially in an area where if in fact those explorations do take place, the de facto rights of the island of Kastellorizon will be abolished, leading to further dramatic consequences.

Those of us old enough to even vaguely remember a similar crises with the explorations vessel of «Chora» in 1976 and of «Sismik» in 1987 that brought Greece and Turkey to the brink of war, feel very anxious when we realize that we may be faced with a similar situation.

Just the day before yesterday, the Sunday edition of the newspaper «ETHNOS» published a highly instructive article by Professor of Political Economy Theodoros Karyotis, a member of the Greek delegation at the UN Conference on the Law of the Sea, revealing a potential diplomatic Waterloo threat to our country, regarding the issue of delimitation of the Greek Exclusive Economic Zone with that of Cyprus and Egypt.

The article highlights the strategic importance of Kastellorizon and the recognition of its full rights, because if those rights are abolished (as it is likely to happen because of the lack of maneuverability by the Greek side and the unacceptable attitude of Cairo), Turkey and …Egypt will be found to have common sea borders! Such a development would be extremely negative for both Greece and Cyprus.

Unfortunately, as if all those unpleasant successive developments were not enough, it is even worse that there is no serious political player in Greece at the moment, that deals with all those issues seriously.

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis is involved with how to prolong the survival of its faltering government for a few months or weeks. He has neither the head space to think what this all means vis-a-vis the policy framework of Obama and the upgrade of Turkey’s role, nor any knowledge of how to deal with the consequences, by at least taking advantage of the strong opposition of the leaders of Germany and France regarding Ankara’s accession in the EU.
Naturally and in this light, he is not even considering to radically revise his anachronistic and out of time and place unconditional and fanatical support towards Turkey’s accession to the EU. That support, that is both personal and that of his government, has now become notorious and graphic amongst other things, to the extent that it causes both anger and amusement to the European leaders.

As far as the official opposition leader, George Papandreou, is concerned, everything is subject to having as quickly as possible early elections in order to enjoy the possession of power. As a result of this line of thinking he is quick to condemn with the same tones the government of Karamanlis as incompetent, regardless of the issue, whether it has to do with the Vatopedi or with the Greek-Turkish relations or with the …flu pandemic, unable however to convince anybody.

Ultimatum in December: Disrupt the talks on Turkey!

It would be a contribution of the Karamanlis government to the Nation, shortly before leaving the power to do, what it did not do for nearly six years in power: to stand up against Turkey and to block the EU accession negotiations with Ankara, demanding and setting as a condition for the resumption of the talks, the abandonment of the aggressive Turkish stance and politics, as well the resolution of a series of Greek-Turkish issues. The government of the ruling New Democratic Party would directly undermine the interests of Greece, should it continue negotiations for the accession of Turkey to the EU in December, after the disgraceful actions perpetrated by Turkey in the Aegean and Cyprus.

Giorgos DELASTIK