The following letter is in response to the August 30 editorial, “There’s a new game of thrones in the mediterranean”. The Times editorial concedes that international law is on the side of Greece, but seemingly advocates the appeasement of Turkey. Furthermore, many of the facts recounted by the editorial make the case for supporting Greece against Turkey as Ankara is very clearly a major threat to international peace and stability. Turkey’s threats to unleash unlimited numbers of refugees into Europe should further the case for supporting Greece in the Mediterranean. The western world has wronged the historical victims of Turkish genocide and aggression including the Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks, Kurds, and Arabs. America and Europe have a crucial opportunity to correct these injustices and to demonstrate their support for democratic norms and values by supporting democratic Greece and Cyprus against an increasingly authoritarian Turkey.
The Times editorial criticizes the Trump administration for not emulating the previous handling of crises between Greece and Turkey by previous administrations. This argument completely ignores the fact that every previous “resolution” aimed allegedly at defusing conflict between Athens and Ankara resulted in sacrificing Greece and Cyprus to the aggressive designs of Turkey. On January 31, 1996 the Clinton administration forced Greece to remove its flag from an islet that maps and international treaties proved was Greek territory. Such “solutions” were in actual fact nothing more than appeasement. Nothing better demonstrates the moral bankruptcy of the handling of Greek-Turkish conflicts any better than the fact that Turkey maintains its occupation of the northern part of Cyprus almost fifty years after the invasions of that sovereign Republic by Turkish forces.
The Turkish regime under President Erdogan is an international threat to peace and stability. Greece deserves full support from all governments and alliances that claim to espouse international law and democratic values and norms.
Theodore G. Karakostas
The link to the article being responded to
10 replies on “Letter to the New York Times”
We are dealing with a pathological leader in Erdogan: https://www.ekathimerini.com/256456/article/ekathimerini/news/die-welt-claims-erdogan-asked-his-generals-to-sink-a-greek-ship
Wow! This guy has really lost it. How do you trigger an incident like that without the loss of lives? The fact that the Turkish Generals said no speaks well of their judgement. If this is true, it means that the Turkish Army is not as war crazy as Erdogan is. Who knows, maybe there is still opposition to Erdogan.
He’ll sack the generals who didn’t follow his orders and replace them with lapdogs, just as he did with the Turkish Central Bank Head Governor who wouldn’t lower interest rates like Erdogan told him to. He’s certifiable. But, I think he’s near the end of his Presidency-the Turkish economy is heading for recession again and their currency is heading for the crapper. When average folks struggle to put enough food on the table they tend to get pretty upset, and it’s ALL Erdogan’s fault.
He’ll sack the generals who didn’t follow his orders and replace them with lapdogs, just as he did with the Turkish Central Bank Head Governor who wouldn’t lower interest rates like Erdogan told him to. He’s certifiable. But, I think he’s near the end of his Presidency-the Turkish economy is heading for recession again and their currency is heading for the crapper. When average folks struggle to put enough food on the table they tend to get pretty upset, and it’s ALL Erdogan’s fault.
https://www.voanews.com/europe/turkey-greece-maritime-squabble-risks-unfortunate-war
You can’t negotiate with someone like Tayyip Erdogan or his minions, who issue threats of military action on a daily basis. Any negotiation would be interpreted as appeasement and bullies never respond well to weakness. Greece must be firm in defending it’s sovereign rights and borders and abide by the rule of law. As long as Mitsotakis stands behind the rule of law with strength and not recklessness, he’ll be positioned to come out on this issue. Actually, Erdogan is the best weapon Greece has in it’s appeals to the world’s powers, the Turkish President has offended nearly every world leader at one time or another. Don’t misinterpret Trump’s recent public comments about Erdogan, he also threatened to ‘wreck Turkey’s economy’ over the imprisoned US pastor situation. I believe he has Erdogan figured out precisely and plays him to achieve US ends. Stay the course, Athens.
Turks demolish another Orthodox Church, plan to build Mosque where it stood. It has been renovated as a museum, the AKP regime locked it up until it was unsafe to enter after years of abandonment-then demolished it without notice overnight. Now say they’ll build a Mosque in that location: https://www.sozcu.com.tr/2020/gundem/cami-yapacagiz-denilerek-belediyeye-devredilmeyen-tarihi-kilise-bakimsizliktan-yikildi-6019491/
Is there an English language version of this article? I am not surprised.
This guy is a full fledged Islamic extremist.
You can use the Google translation feature to translate it into English, at least on my screen. Here’a another good article put out today by Time magazine: https://time.com/5885650/erdogans-ottoman-worry-world/
https://greekcitytimes.com/2020/09/04/turkey-is-losing-all-its-gains-in-the-middle-east-and-greece-is-benefiting/