Turkish Foreign Minister claims Greek islands are Turkish

[Geilinor]

Turkey's been part of NATO since 1952. Erdoğan wasn't born until 1954.

Yeah, I know. My question is, why are we still letting them stay in NATO? They are a net detriment to European and American interests. Simple as that, a binding vote to kick Turkey out of NATO would be wise.

I don't think there's a clause in the treaty to do so.

[Senkaku]

Someday Erdogan is going to find out from someone that he isn't Sultan and that Turkey does not still rule the Levant and the Eastern Mediterranean and all that, and I'm sure he'll be quite sad.

[Baltenstein]

If the Turks take over one of those islands then Greece can declare the 1923 treaty void and thus go back to these borders -

The pre-treaty borders of Greece - http://www.dcstamps.com/wp-content/uplo ... on-Map.gif

Greece has absolutely no means whatsoever of enforcing these borders.

When's Russia finally going to kick his ass? With Europe plagued by the Right and Trump loving Putin they pretty much have a free shot.

Putin, Trump and Erdogan are getting along just fine, and express how much they are friends with each other frequently.
I mean, the world can only benefit from a triple alliance of authoritarian chauvinist strongmen, right? There must be some positive historic examples for this.

[Senkaku]

Putin, Trump and Erdogan are getting along just fine, and express how much they are friends with each other frequently.

Yeah, but as soon as someone starts throwing around SAMs and swatting his jets, Erdogan does get a but moody. I imagine the others would too.


Now all we need are for Xi, Duterte, Chan-ocha, and al-Sisi to get on board.

[Bhikkustan]

Pfft. Just invade Gallipoli again.

Did we not learn from the past? The least we could do is land on the proper beach.

Nah why do that? We are EnglishAnzac! Far better than these uncivilised eastern barbariaaargh!

In all seriousness we should wait for the pope to call a crusade first.

[FelrikTheDeleted]

Did we not learn from the past? The least we could do is land on the proper beach.

Nah why do that? We are EnglishAnzac! Far better than these uncivilised eastern barbariaaargh!

In all seriousness we should wait for the pope to call a crusade first.

What?

[Bhikkustan]

Nah why do that? We are EnglishAnzac! Far better than these uncivilised eastern barbariaaargh!

In all seriousness we should wait for the pope to call a crusade first.

What?

Before invading the Middle East again we at lest needd an excuse and oil just won't cut it this time.

[Stormaen]

Yep, Turkey and Erdogan have gone full Putin. Never go full Putin.

[Frank Zipper]

Turkey is not long for this world.

[Mefpan]

Can we please just abolish the Turkish state for a couple years or so. I'm growing increasingly tired of their shit.

[Herskerstad]

No option to sell?

[Isyrannaea]

>mfw

[Defender of Democracy]

How is anyone ok with Turkey being in NATO, and soon, maybe the EU?

Turkey has been allowed to get away with all sorts of violations of international law because its geographic location has been of strategic interest to the United States.
However things are slowly changing, and eventually Turkey will get it's just deserts.

These things are only an issue for non-Greeks who are suddenly appalled by Turkeys behaviour because of the Islamist shift in Turkey under Erdogan.
For the past two decades when every day Turkish F16s violated the airspace of a fellow NATO member and member of the EC/EU, breaking various international laws and air safety regulations and putting civilian air traffic in danger with their stunts, or when the Turkish navy escorted Turkish fishing vessels into Greek territorial waters, or when Turkey landed soldiers on a Greek islet(Imia) and brought the two to the brink of war, or Turkey ignoring the UN Security Council and continuing to maintain its illegal military occupation force in the northern third of Cyprus while violating the Geneva conventions by repopulating the occupied zones with Turkish citizens, the Western world turned a blind eye and didn't care. Just like they didn't care when Turkey was committing genocide and just like they didn't care when Turkey was erasing hundreds of Kurdish villages off the face of the earth.

This is the monster that the West created. Is the West going to come out the monster down? Or will the West sell Greece more weapons to put the monster down for them one day soon?

But anyway enough of the semi I told you so speech.

If people think it has anything to do with Erdogan and Turkeys Islamist turn they'd be wrong.
Under the previous Kemalist governments in Turkey the same crap was happening.
In fact they once tried to do oil survey/searches in Greek waters so the Greek navy was deployed and ordered to sink them. Turkeys ships went home. That and Imia and Cyprus was under Kemalism.
Islamist Turkey is no different in that regard.

Too bad America stood in the way of Russia bombing them to their 72 virgins when they shot the Russian bomber down in Syria.

[Yurantsk]

As a Greek,living in the multicultural island of Rhodes,we and the turkish people living on this island can agree that both Turkish and Greek governments talk a lot of shit to eachother for no reason at all,don't listen to the Turkish bullshit but don't make the huge mistake to listen to the Greek bullshit too,I dont trust my government,you shouldn't trust my government too.

[Baltenstein]

If people think it has anything to do with Erdogan and Turkeys Islamist turn they'd be wrong.
Under the previous Kemalist governments in Turkey the same crap was happening.

No, there actually are some crucial differences.

Kemalist Turkey was content with sabre-rattling with Greece, and pretty much only Greece, over its immediate border regions. The Kemalists were also perfectly aware of Turkey's place in the Western security system and did not try to challenge it.

Islamist Turkey, on the other hand, has gone completely bonkers with the imperial overreach. They constantly antagonize the US, they openly threaten the EU (something that Kemalist Turkey would never have done), and they engange in increasingly aggressive power projection in the Balkans and the Middle East, up to and including supporting jihadist terrorism.

Kemalist Turkey was content with Asia Minor and maybe everything that touched its borders. Islamist Turkey thinks she deserves a vast empire.

This is the monster that the West created.

It is, first and foremost, the monster that Turkish society itself, with its paranoia, authoritarianism, xenophobia and revanchism, has created.

Too bad America stood in the way of Russia bombing them to their 72 virgins when they shot the Russian bomber down in Syria.

Yeah right, because this is what Russia would have done.

[ChicagoBoys]

Furthermore, it is in my opinion that Turkey must be destroyed.

[Crockerland]

Unfortunately, Turkey can do almost anything it wants and will never be kicked out of NATO. Why, you ask? Two reasons:

Erm you do know they aren't allowed to close those unless it is in self defense right? So the empire of 100% justification can still send their fleets through those to cause misery if they wish.

They aren't allowed to commit a genocide against the Armenians and deny that genocide to this day
They aren't allowed to attempt to exterminate the Assyrian people
They aren't allowed to slaughter hundreds of thousands of Greeks based on their race
They aren't allowed to colonize and ethnically cleanse half of Cyprus

I don't think Turkey cares what it's "allowed" to do.

[Dumb Ideologies]

Sounds like the court jester of NATO wanted to reassert its position after America elected Trump.

[Hurdergaryp]

How is anyone ok with Turkey being in NATO, and soon, maybe the EU?

Turkey has been in the NATO for a long time, because it used to share a border with the fearsome Soviet Union itself.

[Dilordaopia]

"Everything is Turkish"
SATAN 2 rocket on Turkish army when?

[Targovia]

*byzantine empire flashbacks*

[Risottia]

Unfortunately, the never-ending stream of worrying news from Turkey continues. Stepping in line with president Erdogan's latest remarks that the Lausanne treaty consisted of "unfair conditions that were imposed upon Turkey" that "are not going to last forever" (Seen here), Turkish foreign minister Cavusoglu has decided to up the ante and make territorial demands on the Greek Islands of Imia:

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?

YES PLZ ERDOGAN DO ATTACK A NATO AND EU MEMBER.

[Risottia]

What?

Before invading the Middle East again we at lest needd an excuse and oil just won't cut it this time.

We need sand for the glass of solar panels.

[Reismov]

They're only Turkish because modern Greeks are Turks.

Now the ancient Greeks that we all know and respect fled to the mountains in the north, and settled into what is today the Republic of Macedonia

[Hurdergaryp]

NATO members tend to defend each other when one of them is attacked by an outside aggressor, but what if a NATO member is attacked by a NATO member? Not that it is likely that this will happen, since Turkey has a bit of a personnel problem when it comes to its armed forces. All those purges after the failed coup really did a number upon the numbers of pilots, soldiers and so on.