The meeting K. Mitsotakis – P.T. Erdogan in New York, on 9-24-24, was the sixth in the last fifteen months. Is this a “political romance” between the two leaders, especially after the Declaration of Athens (December ’23) or the “Stockholm Syndrome” where the victim through psychological and emotional processes ends up falling in love with his abuser?
What is the purpose of all these meetings, talks, “confidence building measures”, the so-called positive agenda, etc.? Where is the “window of opportunity” that the Greek Government sees?
One thing is certain: All of this binds Greece not to attempt to overturn the status quo, which is unfavorable to it, in the Aegean and the Mediterranean and exonerates, on the international stage, the revisionist-expansionist Turkey.
What are the perennial issues of the Greek-Turkish confrontation that, according to the Government, the dialogue will promote their solution?
1. Greece is entitled to exercise the unilateral right given to it by the International Law of the Sea to increase, that is, its territorial waters up to 12nm in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean and the removal of the Turkish casus belli in this regard? No, Ankara argues.
2. Do the Greek islands that can sustain human activity have the same EEZ (up to 200nm) as the mainland, as provided by the International Law of the Sea? No, they only have territorial waters of 6 nautical miles. Turkey opposes.
3. Are the islands of the Eastern Aegean entitled to be militarized because they are threatened? We are reminded of “We will come one night suddenly”. No, they must be demilitarized according to the Lausanne-Paris Treaties, says Turkey.
4. Can Greece submit its Maritime Spatial Planning maps to the EU, as the Republic of Cyprus has done? Would such an action mean the declaration (not the demarcation) of the entire Greek EEZ, without causing a strong Turkish reaction?
5. Will the announced Marine Parks be realized or forgotten so as not to spoil the positive atmosphere? Ankara said its consent was required.
6. Will the illegal, according to the International Law of the Sea, Turkoliv Memorandum be canceled or will it prevent any exploitation of the demarcated Greek EEZ with Egypt?
7. The narratives of the “Blue Homeland” and the “Blue Airs” are a direct challenge to the sovereignty and sovereign rights of Greece. Turkey claims half of the Aegean, east of the 25th Meridian and the entire sea area between Rhodes and Cyprus (see map). Can such a thing be accepted?
8. In Cyprus, Turkey requests the international recognition of the occupied zone as an independent state. At the same time, it declares that its occupying troops will remain on the island. Can Hellenism accept it?
9. The Muslim minority of Western Thrace, which Ankara, against the Treaty of Lausanne, calls Turkish, has been used for years as a “strategic minority” for the hybrid destabilization of Greece and intervention in its internal affairs.
The Greek Government and the rest of the dominant political system do not react in order not to anger Turkey.
All these and other important issues determine the outcome of the Greek-Turkish dialogue. Turkey is gaining time and getting stronger. The Declaration of Athens made it easier for Ankara to acquire the American F-16s (40 + 80 aircraft and plenty of weapons). Continuing the dialogue makes it easier for Turkey to lift US sanctions on its war industry and perhaps acquire the F-35s.
Greece is wasting time, not exercising its legal rights and not overturning the status quo, in which it is trapped.
Turkey, for its part, insists on constantly asserting its claims, when necessary it enforces them through coercion (e.g. recently in Casso) and in the end it will invoke “the realities on the ground” as a kind of “usefulness” to legitimize them on the international stage.
Immigration
The Greek Government promotes the cooperation with Turkey to limit migration flows as a success of the dialogue.
This is propaganda for internal consumption. Really, how do migrants from Central Asia, the Horn or sub-Saharan Africa get to Turkey? Do they come walking? Of course not. They arrive on Turkish Airlines flights (without a visa) in Istanbul and from there are forwarded to Evros and the Aegean coast.
Is there anyone naive enough to believe that all this traffic is happening without the knowledge of the Turkish secret services, gendarmerie and police? Traffickers are simply the executive organs of Turkey’s hybrid businesses.
According to Frontex data, in the first eight months of 2024, migration flows from the Eastern Mediterranean to Greece increased by 39% (over 37,000 people). In contrast, from the Central Mediterranean to Italy they decreased by 64%.
The Greek Minister of Immigration and Asylum N. Panagiotopoulos, in a recent interview, stated that the flows, in the first eight months, increased by 60%. Maybe he knows something more. These numbers are for those who are located and recorded.
Thousands more cross the border illegally. Every day in Evros and Egnatia Street, foreign and national traffickers are arrested with stolen cars promoting illegal immigrants inside the country. That fence on the Evros is progressing at a “turtle pace”.
Really, why doesn’t the Greek Government suspend the granting of asylum for six months, as the Republic of Cyprus did, resulting in a steep decrease in immigrant arrivals? But how can he do it when the Greek Prime Minister has declared that he is happy that the Greek society is changing into a multicultural one! When the Greeks, that is, will become one of the various minorities that will live in the Greek territory.
The Cyprus issue
Nikos Christodoulidis, president of the Republic of Cyprus, an internationally recognized state, a member of the UN, the EU and other international organizations, is asking for a meeting with the head of the separatist entity of Northern Cyprus to restart the dialogue for a solution to the Cyprus problem. Except that the solution to the Cyprus issue will not be decided by Ersin Tatar, but by Ankara.
If N. Christodoulidis wanted to preserve his dignity and especially the prestige of the Republic of Cyprus, he should have asked for a dialogue with Erdogan. From up close, K. Mitsotakis and his Minister of Foreign Affairs declare that they are happy that there is mobility in the Cyprus problem. Mobility to arise what? To exonerate the invader and conqueror?
After 50 years, no state and no international organization calls for the withdrawal of the occupation troops from Cyprus. Everyone is asking for dialogue between the two communities and mutual concessions to find any solution. Turkey is on the defensive.
This is where Hellenism has been led by 50 years of appeasement policy Neither Athens nor Nicosia are talking about preventing, stopping and liberating occupied Cyprus.
Erdoğan is asking from the floor of the UN General Assembly for the international recognition of the occupied territories as an independent state, and Mitsotakis and Christodoulidis for a Bi-communal-Dizonal Federation which may be even worse than partition, since it will also place the free areas under the geopolitical control of Turkey.
At this point in the Greek-Turkish confrontation, either Hellenism will accept all Turkish conditions or Turkey will have to be forced to abandon its geostrategic goals.
There is no middle solution, because if Greece and Hellenism only gives some of what Ankara demands, “so that we are not every day with our finger on the trigger” as Mr. Mitsotakis said, we will simply whet her appetite for the remaining in an even weaker position.
Unless the “Stockholm Syndrome” has completely taken over the political staff in Athens and Nicosia.
PS 1 Perhaps the reference of K. Mitsotakis during his speech at the UN “Summit for the Future” went unnoticed. He said: “The global interest transcends the individual interest of states.” Who really defines the global interest? Globalisation, the European Union, NATO, the Davos Summit or someone else?
PS 2 One is surprised by the obsession of Greek politicians to talk about the eventual delimitation of the continental shelf and EEZ with Turkey. Are they unaware that the continental shelf is included in the EEZ? Or do they serve Ankara which has not ratified the Convention on the Law of the Sea and wants a continental shelf demarcation to claim that the Greek islands of the Aegean sit on the Anatolian continental shelf?
