[U-214]

This is bad, my Grandfather on my Mother's side (actually from the Ionnina area) took part in the doomed 1922? campaign in Smyrna (on the Greek side) and last year I visited Cappadocia in Turkey where my father's ancestors come from, they were also Greek btw.

My grandfather was also there in 1922.Pitty,we would have got rid of a bad neighbour once and for all,we arrived at 50 miles from Ankara and then lost a battle and the war.It was the fault of the ungrateful mainland voters though,that brought back the King in Greece and this shifted some of the super powers into helping Turkey.Oddly there is still a trauma in Turkey left,which makes them paranoid (i ve "met" in internet some that actually think we may invade them...)

Most of people in Turkey are actually pretty nice, but the government, and the huge influence of the Turkish army is rather scary.

Yes,the problem is the deification of the figure of Kemal Ataturk,the fact that in his testament-constitution he gave to the army the role of the guarantor of the constitution and so it has privileged position in their society and in their business.Because unlike in any other country,most of the "state" weapons factories are in reality "army owned" ,so they have every reason to want an arms race,since they feed their own pockets.And the propaganda with which the Turks are fed by their military establishment is unbeleivable.They are so brainwashed that are convinced that Greece is the provocating factor seeking clash with Turkey.The fact that we are 11 mln and they are 70mnl or that strangely we don't ask any turkish soil is irrelevant.It's them who are patient with us.

I also am disappointed the EU could not bring about a settlement of the Cyprus question.

Duh,the EU has taken no real position (other than nice words on papers/resolutions)for greek-turkish disputes and consider than Greece is in the ECC and later EU since 1981.So go figure if they are in hurry to do anything about Cyprus which only entered the EU 2 years ago...The UN resolutions on Cyprus against Turkey would make Saddam look like a boy scout,yet not only all close their eyes to them,but Britain and USA have clear pro-turkish position.Anyway,Cyprus is pursuing better her interests once in the EU than Greece is ,if you ask me.We are in a sleepy condition ,simply giving "green light" to Turkey with no exchange since 1999.At the end we ll let Turkey in the EU and nothing will have changed in their behaviour.

http://www.hri.org/Cyprus/Cyprus_Pro...ions-list.html

It's called "realpolitik".That's why we arm ourselves,because we 've learned that we can't count on anyone if something happens in the Aegean,just like in 1996 Newsweek was out with an article about how we almost went to war about "2 rocky islets that Greeks call Imia and Turks call Kardak".Well,the result of that "innocent" incident were the maps claiming 150 more,like i posted above.But Newsweek didn't bother to say "hey,let's see who's right".And even those who knew,didn't say anything pubblic.The Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time,Lamberto Dini,sent a telegram to the Turks the night of the crisis saying that the islands were indeed part of the Dodekanese and transfered from Italy to Greece after WWII.A turkish newspaper lately revealed that the turkish minister that received the telegraph concealed it from the turkish PM of the time (Tansu Ciler).Yet,still today ,with everything against them,they continue this "dispute".The funny is that the Turks raised the SAME dispute with the Italians in 1932 and the Italians had the borders delimitated AGAIN in detail in a Treaty,which also specifically says that Imia (Kardak in Turkish) was in the Italian side of the border (and so later greek):

30. a moitie distance entre Kardak [Imia] (R.k.s.)et Kato I. (Anatolie),
http://www.hri.org/docs/mpadocs/96-02-01.mpadocs.html

That's why Dini was sending telegraphs,cause it's mentioned by name.Also in Lausanne Treaty 1923 it is clearly stated that Turkey doesn't have any sovereignty over islands over 3nm from its coast.
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1918p/lausanne.html
Imia are 3,3 nm away from their coast.

But of course treaties like that are details when you are in for something.

And so every now and then we have a new "dispute" raised and we have to behave politely about it.Like if you have a neighbour that wakes up after 80 years and says "listen my garden should be 5 meters inside your garden and so i call that gray zone and ask you to find a middle solution like reasonable people,but i won't bring you to court for that claim of mine".What are you supposed to do?Strangely all the "disputes" are about dividing something greek and are raised unilaterally by Turkey.

Thanks U-214 for your extended answers.
I'm quite surprises that the Aegean is such a hot area.
I'm intertested because recently I flew a lot on a shared KLM/Cyprus Air flight to Cyprus, just past Turkey, and was wondering about this conflict...

My friend,for a year we were even in CIA's "most likely to explode" list.Thankfully we arrived close but didn't quite explode.

I m glad you weren't a passenger of flight like this:

June 30, 2003 - Two Turkish F-16s harassed a commercial plane of the Greek express courier company "Veravia". The propeller cargo plane had taken off from Athens' "Eleftherios Venizelos" International Airport and was en route to Larnaca Airport in Cyprus.

http://www.f-16.net/news_article697.html

Turkish F-16s buzz Greek passenger plane
By Lieven

June 9, 2003 - Today, two Turkish F-16s flew close to an Olympic Airways Boeing 717 in Greek airspace, triggering the crash avoidance alarm and prompting a protest by the Greek Foreign Ministry. The passenger plane (flight 321) was en route from Athens to Istanbul.

http://www.f-16.net/news_article652.html


Because as i said,they don't submit flight plans.They roar into the Athens FIR and unless our aircrafts identify them and ask them flight plans,the civillian flights end up like that.


Another time they flew 300 ft over the Rhodes civillian airport.The problem is,if we do shoot them down first,we risk having Newsweek or any other saying again "an incident occured in what the Greeks call defense of their airspace and the Turks hostile action ".The rest on who was the aggressor and who was the victim will be a political decision of the various govs and we know that US will support Turkey..And if a war starts,Greece wants Turkey to be the one to fire the first shot for political reasons.For example even the 1996 dogfight that ended up in the Turkish F-16 being shot down,could have had political conseguences.Now,both sides kept it as "accident" untill a greek newspaper 2 years ago wrote something and a retired Turk Chief of Staff made pubblic declaration that it was in deed shot down.The result was that the family of the Turkish pilot,encouraged by the gov,threatened to sue Greece before the European Court of Human Rights.

March 4, 2004 - According to Turk.us, the family of a Captain who was killed in a dog fight over the Aegean Sea, sued Athens, at the European Court for Human Rights (ECHR). Pilot Captain Nail Erdogan was killed in a F-16 during the flight over the Aegean on 8 October 1996. The petition of his family to the ECHR has been accepted by the court.
http://www.f-16.net/news_article1012.html

At the end this was proven not true and there was no case filed against Greece,but the Turks leaked this rumour probably for "internal consumption" as there should have been some form of "satisfaction" inside Turkey once it was admitted that the plane was shot down.A matter of prestige,since they also cultivate the idea of "invincible" army.



You can choose your friends ,but you can't choose your neighbours.Unfortunately,since the ancient times we are in the border of Europe being first in the row of repelling asian attackers...