[ad_1]
98 years ago, on August 30, Turkey, under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, won the war of independence against Greece. Eleftherios Venizelos, Prime Minister of Greece, nominated Ataturk for the Nobel Peace Prize eleven years later. Journalist Piotr Zalewski noted on Twitter that it is a good time to remember both events.
Rarely since 1922 have the two neighbors been so close to another war. For weeks, the two countries have been fighting over territories and raw materials in the eastern Mediterranean. Both Turks and Greeks have positioned their navy. And neither side seems willing to budge.
“Destabilization factor”
Greece’s Foreign Minister this week called Turkey a “troublemaker” and a “destabilizing factor in the region.” “If someone wants to pay the price, they can mess with us,” said Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president.
Erdogan, the most powerful Turkish head of state since Ataturk, the founder of the republic, is under pressure. The Turkish economy contracted 9.9 percent in the second quarter, more than ever. Erdogan’s polls are in the basement, the metropolises of Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir are already ruled by the opposition.
However, it would be wrong to explain Erdogan’s actions in the Mediterranean solely on internal political motives. His attitude towards Greece is shared by the majority of Turks. They feel that they are taking advantage of the border that is drawn in the Mediterranean. And the current foreign policy doctrine dates back to a Kemalist official.
In fact, it is above all the scope of the so-called “Exclusive Economic Zones” (EEZ) that is controversial, that is, those waters to which the states have exclusive access. Greece derived an EEZ within a 200 kilometer radius of all its islands, which means that Turkey only has a small EEZ despite its long coastline. A fact that international lawyers also view critically.
The United States Fails as a Mediator
When Greece and Turkey fought over two uninhabited islands in the Aegean in the 1990s, then-US President Bill Clinton prevented a war. America falls under Donald Trump as a mediator.
Therefore, it is up to Chancellor Angela Merkel to mediate between the two NATO partners. She is the only European head of government who has good contacts with both Erdogan and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. A first attempt at mediation by Germany recently failed, among other things, because Greece signed a maritime treaty with Egypt. Athens has apparently also declined to NATO arbitration talks this week.
The federal government should try to persuade the two rivals to use the disputed waters together until an international court resolves the conflict permanently.
