Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Wednesday referred to the eastern Aegean Imia islets as “Turkish soil.”
Cavusoglu was responding in writing to a question tabled by a Turkish MP regarding the status of islands and islets in the Aegean.
“As long as the AKP is in power there will be no change in the legal and de facto status of islands in the Aegean,” noted Cavusoglu in his statement.
Cavusoglu’s comments followed comments made by the leader of the Turkish Republican People's Party (CHP) Kemal Kilicdaroglu in which he accused Greece of occupying 18 islands in the Aegean.
Reacting to Cavusoglu's statement, the Greek foreign ministry issued its own statement on Thursday.
"Greece’s sovereignty over its islands in the Aegean, including Imia, is undisputable and established by international law,” the ministry said, adding that "Irresponsible references to the contrary are provocative," given that the legal status of Aegean islands and islets was determined by a series of international agreements signed last century.
In 1996, Greece and Turkey came close to war over the uninhabited outcrop.
http://www.ekathimerini.com/214212/arti ... k-reaction
State of Emergency, constant sabre-rattling against the West, increasing repression of all internal opposition, establishment of a strong-man cult of personality, glorification of the imperial past, now open territorial demands against smaller neighbor countries: the Erdogan government has started to mimic the antiques of Nazi Germany so closely that I'm really starting to wonder if Erdogan has a copy of "Mein Kampf" somewhere on his bedside table.
Greek PM Alexis Tsipras meanwhile has more important things to do, like worshipping Fidel Castro's corpse in Havana and holding great speeches about the evils of Capitalism or whatever.
It is my personal opinion that - against an increasingly hostile and revanchist Turkey - the EU must cooperate more closely on matters of border security and immigration management and look for ways that reduce the dependency on Erdogan's Turkey on that particular matter in any way possible. The integrity of EU memberstates borders must be guaranteed in the Aegean as much as in the Baltics/Eastern Europe or elsewhere, especially with the possible prospect that a Trump presidency will considerably reduce American hard power presence in Europe.
What say ye NSG?
