[ad_1]
Thursday, October 22, 2020, 00:02
Athens has made a strategic decision, as Tayyip Erdogan does not say to stop provoking with his movements. According to a well-informed source from liberal.gr, Megaro Maximou has decided to invest more in the European Union, thus wanting to show that the problem is not Greek-Turkish but Euro-Turkish. In this way, the Prime Minister’s Office estimates that they are more likely to “repel” the Turkish tsaboukades.
In this context, for a few days, a specific plan has been implemented, with the aim of activating all the European forces necessary for Greece to be placed under the roof of Brussels.
In addition to the economic sanctions already included in the package of possible sanctions approved by the Foreign Affairs Council in August, Greece, following the new escalation of Turkish provocations, has now put two additional issues on the table with the European partners: embargo on arms sales to Turkey and review of Turkey’s compliance with Customs Union rules.
These are two issues on which Nikos Dendias sent letters, on the one hand, to his counterparts in the countries that sell arms in Turkey and, on the other, to the competent EU commissioner. The first was raised by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis at the last European Council, before all leaders, as one of the measures that could lead Turkey to reconsider its provocative behavior.
In his letter to Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Varelli, Nikos Dendias requested a full record of the violations of the EU-Turkey Customs Union, on tariffs and other issues, by Turkey and the adoption of additional measures by the Commission for these violations. The essence of Greece’s argument is that Turkey cannot ask for an improvement of the Customs Union at a time when it already has a long list of violations of the existing one. According to the principles governing the law of the Treaties, the possibility of suspending the customs union should depend on the conduct of Turkey.
Regarding the freezing of the shipment of military material from EU countries exporting arms to Turkey, Greece points to recent provocative actions by Turkey, which point to the creation of military means. Through diplomacy, our country recalls the intervention of the Prime Minister in the last European Council on the obligation of the EU Member States, as is clear from their Common Position, to suspend the export of military material to third countries that use this material for aggressive actions or regional destabilization, just like Turkey does.
Especially in his letter to his German counterpart, the Greek Chancellor requests that permits not be granted for the export of certain military equipment to Turkey, such as submarines, frigates, aircraft and armor upgrades.
The main argument of Greek diplomacy is that the conclusions of previous European Councils on the Turkish provocation in Syria referred to the decisions of the states to impose an arms embargo on Turkey, something that the Prime Minister recalled at the European Council of the last week. This, he said, is a tangible sign of solidarity with two member states against which Turkey has taken a series of provocative actions.
The Prime Minister also recalled that the United States expelled Turkey from the F-35 combat aircraft acquisition and co-production program following the purchase of the Russian S-400 missile system, while Canada decided to suspend the export of weapons systems to Turkey, on the occasion the Nagorno-Karabakh crisis.
However, after Mr. Mitsotakis’s intervention, the issue is on the table to be added to the toolbox of measures that Europe can take to calm Turkey down. The proposal has reportedly been well received and will be considered as part of an overall assessment of Turkey’s behavior in the coming weeks.
[ad_2]
