Mr. Shipley,
The following is in response to the Bloomberg editorial that “Merkel can calm the conflict” between Greece and Turkey. The editorial advocates appeasement of Turkey by advocating membership for Turkey in the East Mediterranean Gas Forum. Greece happens to be entirely in the right in this conflict and is acting defensively to Turkish acts of aggression and provocation. The Erdogan government has for several years openly called for the eradication of the Treaty of Lausanne which defines the current boundaries between Greece and Turkey. President Erdogan and other Turkish officials and politicians have openly put forward claims to the Dodecanese islands that have been Hellenic since classical times and have belonged to present day Greece since 1947 through the signing of the Treaty of Paris.
Furthermore, the editorial makes reference to the January 31,1996 crisis between Greece and Turkey which was instigated by the Turkish Government. The islet called “Imia” is a part of Greece without question and is according to Treaty of Paris a part of Greece. Criticism is given to the Trump administration which is unfavorably compared to the Clinton administrations so called “mediation” of 1996. In fact, the Trump administrations policy is an improvement fromthe Clinton administrations. The Clinton administration in effect bullied and pressured Greece into surrendering its own islet and withdrawing the Greek flag from its own territory. Such an agreement may have been to the satisfaction ofthe officials of the Clinton administration but not to Greece which was forced to surrender its own territory to the Turkish aggressors.
Turkey is presently being ruled by a lunatic who used to purchase oil from the Islamic State and permitted Jihadists from Europe to go through Turkey to join the Islamic State when that criminal entity was engaging in genocide against the Yazidi, Shiite, and Christian populations. The Trump administration should be criticized for betraying the Syrian Kurds and appeasing the Turks in Syria. The Trump administrations non intervention in the crisis between Greece and Turkey is oneof its better moments. Unlike the Clinton administration, the Trump administration so far has not bullied Greece into appeasing the mad man of Ankara.
Your editorial also fails to note that Erdogan and his close allies in the neo fascist action Party are praising the the slaughter of Greeks and Armenians in the Christian City of Smyrna in September 1922. Erdogan and others are in effect threateninga resumption of the genocide of 1914 and 1923 that led to the extermination of millions of Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks. Turkey is an international menace and has no business being invited to join any international organizations. Turkey should be considered an enemy of the civilized world and Greece should be fully backed and supported in defending its territorial integrity against the expansionist and jihadist regime in Ankara.
Theodore G. Karakostas
Link to the Bloomberg article