TURKEY's PROVOCATIONS

AUGUST 11:

Turkey’s president Recep Erdogan seems to be on a provocative journey once again. Recently he made an old Greek church and UNESCO site in Istanbul into a mosque – though the whole world was protesting. And now he is started drilling in areas of the Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea, which according to international law do not belong to Turkey.  It is probably part of an old well-known strategy: If you have problems at home (which he has), then make problems abroad ( to attract attention to that ).  And it is also part of his long term strategy to “make Turkey big as it was during the Ottoman Empire. Another aspect of that is that he has built a presidential palace in Ankara, THE WHITE PALACE, which is bigger than The White House, the Kremlin and Versailles. See photo.

Now, the provocative drilling in waters belonging to Greece and Cyprus have fortunately immediately given strong reactions from major powers – and allies of Turkey, Greece and Cyprus – in the world:

THE EU made this statement – by high representative Josep Borrell:

We stress that the Turkish unilateral actions, in particular in the Eastern Mediterranean, which run counter to EU interest, to the sovereign rights of EU member states and to international law, must come to an end,"

The EU foreign ministers decided on July 13 to do all they can to reduce tensions in the area.  But if Turkey continues its provocations the EU will introduces sanctions against the country.

 

The GERMAN EU PRESIDENCY – foreign minister Heinz Maas:

We need a dialogue with Turkey, but we have also made it clear that where Turkey particularly affects the interests of European Union member states, for example with regard to drilling in the Eastern Mediterranean, we have clear expectations that there are positive signals from Turkey," said German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, whose country currently holds the presidency of the Council of the EU.

Later in the day, Maas told the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee, "I think we have now a short time window up until September and by then at the latest we need understandings on the Eastern Mediterranean, on maritime law issues concerning Greece but also Libya, in order to continue this dialogue with Turkey. Turkey wants to speak about issues such as customs union, visa liberalization — things for which I currently don’t see a basis to make progress with Turkey.”

The US STATE DEPARTMENT:

We urge Turkey to refrain from any drilling plans in the Eastern Mediterranean that will raise tensions in the region.

If you want to read more you may use these two English language newspapers:

 GREECE:      KATHIMERINI    -    www.ekathimerini.com                                                                     

 

TURKEY:     HURRIYET DAILY NEWS    -   www.hurriyetdailynews.com 

 

Photo of the WHITE PALACE in Ankara:


 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

SHIP ELEVATORS IN BELGIUM

I have earlier written about Belgian culture. Today I want to tell you about Belgium’s INDUSTRIAL CULTURE.   In the beginning of the 19 th century the southern part of Belgium, Wallonia, was the most industrialised part of Europe – apart from England. It was based upon coal mines, iron and steelworks and a big network of internal waterways for transport.   East of Mons you can f.ex. see a former huge industrial complex, which today is an art museum.   The owners in 1810 built a lot of houses for their workers around the factory.   These houses are still there. The place is called GRAND HORNU. A very special side of the Walloon industrial culture was and are the so-called SHIP ELEVATORS.   They are huge elevators, which can lift ships up and down from different heights of the canals in the area. The first one in Houdeng-Goegnies was build in 1888. It can lift ships 15 meters up and down. Three more were added in 1917. Each of them can lift 17 meters. These old elevators are
Read more

AMERICA IS COMING BACK TO THE WORLD !

Image
NOVEMBER 24: This is the day! The day when president Trump finally three weeks after the American elections de facto accepts that Joe Biden has won the elections.   And won by a big margin.   So, now US is coming back to the world.   The nominations president-elect Biden is doing shows that he is choosing experienced and professional people, who know what they will be responsible for.   This is also great news for Europe.    The European-American relations will now come back on the track – as real allies, not as sort of adversaries, as Trump preferred to see them.   EU president Charles Michel yesterday congratulated Biden with his victory and invited him to a summit meeting with EU in Brussels next year, after he has taken over in January. The EU with its 448 mio. inhabitants and the US with 328 mio. have a lot in common.   Their mutual trade is huge. In 2019 it was 720 billion dollars – which is about one third of all international trade. We will certainly see much more bilater
Read more

MY FIRST SCHOOL DAY - April 2, 1952

Image
MY VERY FIRST SCHOOL DAY -  April 2, 1952: Today ( April 2, 2021 )   it is exactly 69 – sixtynine – years ago, since I started going to school. This is a long time ago. It was in 1952. But I still remember it, as if it were yesterday. Can you understand that ? It was a wonderful, sunny morning.   I had for such a long time been looking forward to going to school.   Ok, I could already read and I could also write reasonably.   But I wanted to learn much more. And quickly! I knew that we were 4 kids in our village, who should start that day. Two girls and two boys. I knew the other three well. Remember, we lived in a small country village, where everybody knew everybody. The first school day was always sort of a party to us.   Our parents came along to the school on that first day. And we all had put our nicest clothes on, of course. Our farm was about 1 ½ km from the school.   We walked there, my parents and I.   On the way I could see that the three others were in front of
Read more