Less than two days after Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis agreed with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to convene a joint Council of Ministers that would decide on all issues, and the press secretary of the ruling AKP party, Omer Celik, said that “it is impossible to enter into discussion when the demilitarization of the islands has not been carried out, since this issue blocks other existing problems.
He also referred to the “Turkish minority in Thrace”, the NATO base in Alexandroupoli and again blamed Greece, using the well-known fabricated Turkish narrative that “the Greek coast guard is drilling boats and killing migrants in the Aegean”. According to him, if this continues on the part of Greece, then something else will happen, not an agreement.
In a word, Ankara from the very beginning said that in order to conclude this supposedly peaceful agreement, decided in Vilnius, Greece would already have to give up its basic sovereign rights. Of course, anyone who thinks that Selik expresses his “personal opinion”, as it happens … with ministers in Greece, is greatly mistaken.
As Hassan Gioyus, the former Turkish ambassador to Athens, said: “There are differences between Greece and Turkey on three main issues. The first is the Cyprus issue, the Aegean issues and minority issues. When we talk about the Aegean issues, there are many interrelated issues. As you mentioned at the very beginning, starting with the extent of territorial waters, the continental shelf, the exclusive economic zone, and ending with the issue of airspace, but Greece claims that there is one issue, which is the continental shelf, and they say that in the course of intelligence contacts, we discuss this question. But I know that in the preliminary negotiations the Aegean Sea was touched upon in all its aspects. Now they are again saying that they are discussing only the continental shelf, I hope that a new structure will be found and all questions will be raised so that there is a common recognition” .
It’s clear? We are discussing what is already ours, such as the continental shelf and maritime zones, and the Turks, in addition to this, want to discuss many other sovereign rights that also belong to us, and they want to do it safely, because no Turkish sovereign right is being discussed.
Meanwhile, it is surprising that the Turks refer to the Treaty of Lausanne in relation to the islands of the eastern Aegean, declaring that they are not demilitarized, but at the same time, in violation of the Treaty of Lausanne, they call the Greek Muslim minority in Thrace “Turkish”.
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