The Turkish Ambassador to the United Nations Feridun Sinirlioglu has written a letter to the United Nations Security Council claiming that the militarization of the Greek islands by Athens represents a threat to Turkey. The Turkish government of course ignores its own persistent violations of Treaties. The Treaty of Lausanne was supposed to provide autonomy for the Greek populations of the islands of Imbros and Tenedos.
The Treaty of Lausanne was supposed to protect the Greek Orthodox population of Constantinople. Furthermore, at the Lausanne conference of 1923 Turkey officially renounced all claims to Cyprus. Turkey has violated all of the aforementioned agreements that it made.
Turkey is becoming more aggressive and is using Greece’s militarization of the islands as an excuse to justify potential invasions of the islands. One of the few wise things that Greece has done is to militarize the islands. Without military bases and troops the islands would have likely been invaded decades ago.
Where exactly is NATO on this? NATO is threatening war with Russia over Ukraine. NATO does not want to be bothered with Greece. The Mitsotakis government has previously asked NATO to intervene. NATO refused to do so.
NATO was indifferent to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 and to the ethnic cleansing of Greeks from Constantinople in 1955 and later during the 1960’s. Athens and the Greek world in general have made a mistake by aligning themselves so closely with the west. As of this writing it appears that Turkey is offering to assist Ukraine against Russia by providing them with drones.
The Turks are snubbing the Russians. This could again open the door for Greek-Russian cooperation. Whatever Greece does, Athens should not participate in any way in a conflict over Ukraine considering the problems with Turkey.
The Biden administration is proving to be useless to Greece. Anti Russian hysteria is going to make Turkey to important to alienate. Greece needs to think long and hard about future options.