Liberal European Islam? Really? The Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, once a symbol of ethnic diversity, has been ethnically cleansed of non-Muslims. It has become an entirely Muslim city, thanks to Bill Clinton’s intervention in the Bosnian war in support of the Bosnian Muslims against the Serbs.
This man is a hero. He speaks for every freedom loving person on this planet. He is PM Orban of Hungary. He knows what it is like to be overtaken, and he also knows freedom. I have documented his words in English for the convenience of the reader. I have also added my own commentary with his words.
Please send this to as many people as you can. The world needs to know that this mass forced migration of these so-called refugees is not grounded in humanitarianism. It is part of the ultimate plan of the U.N. to knock down all borders, to get the world ready for the NWO!
Manuscript of speech with my commentary in blue:
“The destiny of the Hungarians has become intertwined with that of Europe’s nations, and has grown to be so much a part of the union, that today not a single people –…
I Still Believe In Swiss Direct Democracy, It’s Its Birth In 1291 On This Very Principle.
One For All, All For One. We Got 26 States, With Their Own History, Religion, And Food Specialities..Own Culture In Other Words. You Can’t Bend Them To Give Up Their Own Identity.
Confoederatio Helvetica – Helvetia
Behind This Banner, All, Equaly, Discuss The Future Of Our Country. What Future, What Visions Are In Our Political People And Even More Institutions. To E.U. Three Times We Said No, And Time Again You Hear : When We Will Be In The E.U. Bla Bla Bla.. Some Don’t Get IT.
We Had Last Sunday A Vote (Unnecessary) To Give E.U. A Say On Our Justice System, Giving Them The Last Word In Case Of Comflicts.. (See :
Here The Story Of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff ( Of Austria E.U. Country )
What She Did Is To Call The “Perfect Man” Muhammad : Pedophile, (a person who is sexually attracted to children ) This Perfect Man, married A Six Years Old Girl Named Aïcha And Consume The Marriage When She Was 9 Years Old ) It’s Crazy… She Lost !!!!!!!
“”Islamic blasphemy laws have now been elevated to the law of the land in Europe.””
The European Court of Human Rights Submits to Islam
Bravo to Salvini, and to Italy. Every nation that believes in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness should expel, deport, and purge their countries of this poisonous ideology. But for doing this, Salvini will be denounced as a “racist” and an “islamophobe,” and the European Union will excoriate him for not wanting his country to commit national suicide. Madness.
Turkey Creating New Tensions with Greece and the US
Relations between Washington and Ankara have already deteriorated significantly under Erdogan — as dramatically emphasized by America’s absolutely correct refusal to turn over to Erdogan the man he says is behind Turkey’s 2016 coup attempt, Fethullah Gülen, a Muslim cleric who exiled himself to Pennsylvania almost 20 years ago, as well as by the escalating imbroglio over detained U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson, who is apparently being held as a hostage to force the U.S. to extradite Gülen back to Turkey.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Wess Mitchell recently called Greece, “an anchor of stability in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Western Balkans.”
Under President Trump, the signs keep growing that the U.S. is more and more likely to see things Greece’s way.
During his state visit to Greece in 2017, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made a forceful request that Greece agree to re-negotiate the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. Pictured: Erdogan and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in Athens on December 7, 2017. (Photo by Milos Bicanski/Getty Images)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s June 24 re-election seems to be leading to heightened tensions between Turkey and Greece. Furthermore, in an eventual confrontation between these two NATO member states, Turkey’s reported interest in purchasing air-defense missiles and fighter jets from Russia, underscored by Turkey’s continued detention of American Christian Pastor Andrew Brunson and the U.S. imposition of sanctions on Turkish officials (as well as Turkish counter-sanctions), may well cause Washington to favor Greece.
In addition, prior to June 24, the Turkish parliament, and the Turkish people by referendum, awarded the presidency with nearly authoritarian power. Erdogan may now use these powers to strengthen even further his control of Turkey’s domestic political order — and to become more aggressive internationally as a result.
Erdogan’s margin of victory in the June 24 election was slim. Despite his hold over the Turkish media, Erdogan garnered but a slim majority of 52% in the election. Erdogan, possibly to increase his domestic political support, might continue taking an aggressive posture toward Greece. Erdogan could, for instance, demand that Athens renegotiate the status of Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, which were awarded to Greece in the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.
Turkey’s nationalist political parties, which constitute most of the domestic opposition to Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), already favor a policy that demands Athens return territories given to the Greeks in the Treaty of Lausanne, after the Ottoman Empire’s defeat in World War I. The nationalist People’s Republican Party’s (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu publicly impugned Erdogan’s patriotism for having failed to demand that Greece give back all the disputed islands:
“Look at islands of Aegean, they are Greek islands. The islands that should be ours are occupied by Greece. The Greek flag is fluttering on islands belonging to Turkey. I want an answer for this, Erdogan.”
Erdogan might also want to insist that Greece should surrender sovereignty over the Dodecanese Islands, which consist of 163 islands and islets that Italy ceded to Greece in 1947.
Political opposition to Erdogan’s AKP is also based on the fear that Turkey is becoming increasingly anti-democratic. In addition, many Turks fear that Erdogan’s party is intent on transforming Turkey into an Islamic State, thus jettisoning the country’s modern identity as a secular, democratic republic.
Erdogan seems openly nostalgic for the Ottoman Empire, and recently conducted a ceremonial visit to the refurbished tomb of Sultan Mehmet II, the Turkish conqueror of Constantinople in 1453.
The Ottoman Empire was dis-established in 1924, after more than four centuries as the center of Islam. After the declaration of a Turkish Republic in 1923 by secular, nationalist military officers led by Kemal Ataturk (Mustafa Kemal), both the Sultan and Caliph of the Ottoman Caliphate were forced to abdicate.
The initial sign that Erdogan actually may be adopting a more nationalist policy was his forceful request, during a December 2017 visit to Greece, that Greece agree to re-negotiate the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. The Greek response was immediate and unequivocal. Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos replied:
“The Treaty of Lausanne defines the territory and sovereignty of Greece and the European Union and this treaty is non-negotiable. It has no flaws, it does not to be reviewed or updated.”
Following that rejection, Turkey staged a series of provocative incidents in the Aegean region, including violations of Greek air space and incursions into Greek territorial waters. More serious incidents followed, among them the ramming in February of a Greek Coast Guard vessel by a Turkish patrol boat, harassing a Greek helicopter transporting Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in April, and the crash of a Greek Mirage 2000-5 that had been on a mission responding to Turkish jets violating Greece’s air space over a Greek island close to the Turkish coast.
Bilateral tensions are still escalating. Erdogan is demanding that Greece extradite several Turkish soldiers who fled there for asylum after a failed coup against him in July 2016. Greece’s Supreme Court last year ruled against the extradition, declaring that should an extradition take place, the soldiers would suffer a curtailment of their human rights.
In response, Turkey detained for several months two Greek soldiers who had mistakenly crossed into Turkish territory during inclement weather, but in August finally repatriated them to Greece.
This escalating dispute also includes the divided island of Cyprus, which Turkey invaded in 1974. Since then, Turkey has occupied a northern section of the island, ethnically cleansing Greeks from that part of the island. Cyprus’ political status has remained in limbo ever since.
In June 2017, peace talks between the island nation’s ethnic Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders seemed to be leading to the establishment of a unified government. By February 2018, however, negotiations came to a halt.
The president of Cyprus, Nicos Anastasiades, blamed this sudden collapse on the decision of Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci to await the outcome of the Turkish referendum on the powers of the of the presidency. While the talks remain in recess with no set date for resumption, both the Greek and Turkish communities in Cyprus support a peace settlement. Discussions are underway to explore possibilities for resuming negotiations.
Whatever happens next, Erdogan maintains about 30,000-strong troop presence in the northern portion of Cyprus. If Greek-Turkish tensions escalate, the possibility of another ill-timed military provocation could escalate with them.
The ability of NATO to respond to other conflicts in the area could be affected, as well as NATO air and naval assets based in both countries. Moreover, such a conflict might open up an even greater opportunity for Russian interference.
Erdogan has indicated that he may not be interested in stopping there. Turkish journalist Uzay Bulut, now living in the US, quotes Erdogan as saying in early March 2018:
“There are physical borders and then there are borders in our hearts. Some people ask us: Why do we take an interest in Iraq, Syria, Georgia, Crimea, Karabakh, Azerbaijan, the Balkans, and North Africa?…None of these lands are foreign to us. Is it possible to divide Rize [in Turkey] from Batumi (in [Georgia]? How can we consider Edirne [in Turkey] as separate from Thessaloniki [in Greece]? How can we think that Gaziantep [in Turkey] has nothing to with Aleppo [in Syria], Mardin [in Turkey] with al-Hasakah [in Syria] or Siirt [in Turkey] from Mosul [in Iraq].”
Those overweening attitudes are undoubtedly causing concern in the Trump Administration, already with its hands full with the legacy bequeathed it in Iran, China, and North Korea, to name just a few places. Relations between Washington and Ankara have already deteriorated significantly under Erdogan — as dramatically emphasized by America’s absolutely correct refusal to turn over to Erdogan the man he says is behind Turkey’s 2016 coup attempt, Fethullah Gülen, a Muslim cleric who exiled himself to Pennsylvania almost 20 years ago, as well as by the escalating imbroglio over detained U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson, who is apparently being held as a hostage to force the U.S. to extradite Gülen back to Turkey.
There is a marked increase in pro-Greece rhetoric at the U.S. State Department. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Wess Mitchell recently called Greece, “an anchor of stability in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Western Balkans.” Mitchell also bluntly warned Turkey that the U.S. would not accept any Turkish violations of Cyprus’ Exclusive Economic Zone. Mitchell’s warning was probably a reference to Turkey’s actions to block offshore gas drilling by Cyprus.
If nothing else, Erdogan’s impulsive assertiveness may be inspiring Greece to help in damping down some other sources of regional instability. Athens recently reached a compromise with Macedonia over its name, as “Macedonia” is also a northern region of Greece. Athens then sponsored “The Republic of North Macedonia” as a future new member of NATO.
Greece, which had previously adopted a stridently anti-Western policy in the wake of its massive debt crisis, now describes its overall foreign policy as “Euro-Atlanticism“, and has steadily improved relations with other democratic states such as Israel. Greece and Israel are cooperating with Italy and Cyprus to export to Europe natural gas discovered in Israeli waters.
All of that does not diminish the threats to NATO and the region produced by Erdogan’s growing truculence. Under U.S. President Donald J. Trump, the signs keep growing that the US is more and more likely to see things Greece’s way.
This eye-opening documentary tells the truth about what is happening in Europe — the truth not only that the political and media elites don’t tell you, but that they don’t even want you to know. The film’s producer, Michael Hansen, has faced roadblock after roadblock in getting this film out. Now he has decided to make it available on YouTube.
I Have A Thought For All The Brits Tourists That Goes Back In The U.K. In A Coffin… Every Year !
Wil.
With the illegal seizures and occupation of northern Cyprus in 1974 and the Syrian city of Afrin this March — with virtually no global reaction — Turkey apparently feels unchallenged and eager to continue; this time, it seems, with the oil-and-gas rich islands of Greece.
“To take an interest in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Crimea, Karabakh, Bosnia and other brotherly regions is both the duty and the right of Turkey. Turkey is not just Turkey. The day we give up on these things will be the day we give up on our freedom and future.” — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, 2016.
Turkish needs are in reality supplied by its association with the US. Turkish officials usually get whatever they want from the West, but they seem to have chosen to align themselves with Iran and Russia, possibly in attempt to blackmail the West for more.
Turkey has been harassing Greece consistently. Most recently, this week, on April 17, two Turkish fighter aircraft harassed the helicopter carrying Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and the Greek Armed Forces Chief Admiral Evangelos Apostolakis as they were flying from the islet of Ro to Rhodes.
With the illegal seizures and occupation of northern Cyprus in 1974 and the Syrian city of Afrin this March — with virtually no global response — Turkey apparently feels unchallenged and eager to continue; this time, it seems, with the oil-and-gas rich islands of Greece.
A computer-generated rendering of the April 17 incident in which Turkish fighter jets harassed the helicopter carrying Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, and in response Greek fighter jets arrived to protect the helicopter. (Image source: ‘A News’ video screenshot)
Another provocation by the Turkish government recently took place when three young Greek men recently paid tribute to a dead pilot by planting five flags in some islets in the Aegean.
According to the Turkish media, Turkey first urged Greece to remove the flags, then carried out a military operation against a tiny islet, Mikros Anthropofagos, at night: special operation units (SAT) of the Turkish Navy allegedly removed them on April 15.
“Do not take dangerous steps,” Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, warned Greece: “Our soldiers might cause an accident.”
Many Turkish media outlets proudly covered the operation as if Turkey, in a triumphant battle, had conquered new realms. The Greek media, however, reported that according to witnesses in the area, all five flags are apparently still in place.
The Aegean islands that Turkey keep threatening to invade, legally and historically belong to Greece.
Since Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Greece last December, the Turkish media has escalated its anti-Greek, pro-war reporting concerning “the Greek occupation of the islands.” Some newspapers claim that “Greece has become home to terrorists hostile to Turkey.” Others say, “Greece is planning to invade Turkey.” Some columnists claim that “Turkey can fight against Greece in the Aegean”, while others accuse Greek consular officials in Istanbul of trying to revive the Greek Byzantine Empire through an exhibition the Greek consulate organized in Istanbul from December 2017 – January 2018.
Why are so many Turks obsessed with Greece?
In 1923, after a major attack against Anatolian Greeks — the 1913-1923 genocide — the Turkish republic was founded. Since then, Turkey’s expansionist goals seem to be inspired by a seeming historical aggression, hatred towards Greeks, neo-Ottomanism and an Islamic tradition of conquest, or jihad.
From the mid-15th century until the proclamation of the first Hellenic republic in 1822, modern Greece’s borders were occupied by the Ottoman Empire. Erdogan has been open about his goals of resurrecting the Empire or at least expanding Turkish territory as much as possible:
“There are physical borders and there are borders in our hearts,” he said. “Some people ask us: ‘Why do you take an interest in Iraq, Syria, Georgia, Crimea, Karabakh, Azerbaijan, the Balkans, and North Africa?’… None of these lands is foreign to us. Is it possible to divide Rize [in Turkey] from Batumi [in Georgia]? How can we consider Edirne [in Turkey] to be separate from Thessaloniki [in Greece]? How can we think that Gaziantep [in Turkey] has nothing to do with Aleppo [in Syria], Mardin [in Turkey] with Al-Hasakah [in Syria], or Siirt [in Turkey] with Mosul [in Iraq]?
“From Thrace to Eastern Europe, with every step you take, you will see traces of our ancestors… We would need to deny our true selves for us to think Gaza and Siberia, with whom we speak the same language and share the same culture, is separate from us. To take an interest in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Crimea, Karabakh, Bosnia and other brotherly regions is both the duty and the right of Turkey. Turkey is not just Turkey. The day we give up on these things will be the day we give up on our freedom and future.”
Erdogan also referred to the Misak-ı Milli (“National Pact”), a set of decisions made by the Ottoman Parliament in 1920 concerning the borders of the future Turkish state to be established in Ottoman Turkey. The National Pact is commonly referenced by Turks when calling for Turkish territorial expansion.
“Some historians say that according to the National Pact, the Turkish borders include — in addition to the current borders of Turkey — Cyprus, Aleppo [in Syria], Mosul, Erbil, Kirkuk [in Iraq], Batumi [in Georgia], Thessaloniki [in Greece], Kardzhali, Varna [in Bulgaria], and the Aegean islands.”
On April 18, the Turkish foreign ministry asserted, “the Kardak rocks [Greece’s Imia islets] and their territorial waters and airspace above them are exclusive under Turkish sovereignty.”
Major political parties in Turkey unite in their desire to invade the Aegean islands — what they disagree on is who is guilty of having allowed Greek sovereignty over the islands in the first place. The main opposition party, the CHP, (Republican People’s Party) accuses the ruling AKP (Justice and Development Party) of “letting Greeks occupy Turkish islands”; the AKP accuses the CHP, the founding party of Turkey, of “letting Greeks take the islands through the 1923 Lausanne treaty.”
Turkey’s quests for new economic gains from additional tourism, but especially from the newly-found Aegean oil and gas potential, seem to have intensified Turkey’s renewed interest in Greece.
In 2011, after facing an economic crisis, Greece re-launched its own gas and oil exploration. Last year, France’s Total and Italy’s Edison companies signed a lease for oil and gas exploration off Greece, Reuters reported.
Although Greece might well be willing to partner with Turkey in economic agreements, Turkey appears to prefer “other means.”
Turkish needs are in reality supplied by its association with the US. Turkish officials usually get whatever they want from the West, but they seem to have chosen to align themselves with Iran and Russia, possibly in attempt to blackmail the West for more.
In the meantime, Turkish politicians threaten Greece on Turkish national television. Yiğit Bulut, a chief advisor to Erdogan, recently said that he wants to avenge the blood of his grandfather, whom he claims was killed by Greeks:
“Anatolia [Turkey] will walk all over Greece. And no one can prevent this. Greece should know its place. If they try to attack and rape this geography like they did 100 years ago by trusting [French President] Macron, England, the U.S., Germany and [Angela] Merkel, these attempts will end terribly.”
The time to stop Turkey is now.
Uzay Bulut is a Turkish journalist born and raised in Turkey. She is presently based in Washington D.C.
Turkey Islamized northern Cyprus through a military invasion in 1974. To Islamize the much more powerful European continent, however, Turkey has been promoting demographic, rather than military, jihad.
“The places where you work and live are your homelands and new countries now… Drive the best cars. Live in the most beautiful houses. Make five children — not just three. For you are the future of Europe.” — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, 2017.
Yesterday, while many Europeans are still pilloried for viewing mass migration from Muslim-majority countries as a threat to Western culture — and are still accused of “xenophobia,” “Islamophobia” and “fear-mongering” — the city of Afrin, in the Kurdish area of Syria, fell to Turkey.
At the same time, a prominent Turkish government official has been openly and proudly declaring that the demography of Europe is changing in favor of Muslims.
MP Alparslan Kavaklıoğlu, a member of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the head of the parliament’s Security and Intelligence Commission, recently stated:
“The fortune and wealth of the world is moving from the West to the East. Europe is going through a time that is out of the ordinary. Its population is declining and aging. It has a very old population. So, people coming from outside get the jobs there. But Europe has this problem. All of the newcomers are Muslim. From Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey. Those who come from these places are Muslim. It is now at such a level that the most popular name in Brussels, Belgium is Mohammed. The second most popular name is Melih [Malih] and the third one is Ayşe [Aisha].”
According to Kavaklıoğlu, if this trend continues,
“the Muslim population will outnumber the Christian population in Europe. This… has increased the nationalistic, xenophobic and anti-Islam rhetoric there. Hence, marginal, small parties have started to get large numbers of votes… But there is no remedy for it. Europe will be Muslim. We will be effective there, Allah willing. I am sure of that.”
Kavaklıoğlu is not the first Turkish official to stress the importance of population growth. In 2009, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was prime minister at the time, called on the public to have at least three children per family. The greater our numbers, he said, “the stronger we will be.” Since then, Erdoğan has been trying to encourage Turkish nationals to multiply. In 2013, he reiterated his plea:
“We need a young and dynamic population… Right now, the West is in trouble. But we do not want to put Turkey in the same trouble. I am calling on my country through mothers: Do not take this sensitivity of ours lightly. We need to make this widespread, in waves. We need to make this happen. The [value] of this cannot be measured with money or any other physical wealth.”
In 2017, Erdoğan called on Turks residing in Europe to have even more children:
“The places where you work and live are your homelands and new countries now. Lay a tight claim to those places. Open more businesses and enroll your children in better schools. Live with your families in better neighborhoods. Drive the best cars. Live in the most beautiful houses. Make five children — not just three. For you are the future of Europe.”
Pictured: Thousands of supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan rally, waving Turkish flags, in Cologne, Germany, July 31, 2016. (Photo by Sascha Steinbach/Getty Images)
Erdoğan is now also saying the same thing to Turks in Cyprus. During a recent meeting with the prime minister and deputy prime minister of the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” (recognized only by Turkey), Erdoğan reportedly said, “Economic growth happens in parallel with population growth. The population of Greek Cypriots is more than one million. Just make your own population grow.”
Turkey already largely Islamized and Turkified northern Cyprus through a military invasion in 1974. The Turkish military terrorized the indigenous Greek Cypriots, causing them to flee to the south. The Turkish government then imported thousands of illegal settlers from Turkey to northern Cyprus, to change the demographic structure of the illegally occupied territories. To Islamize the much more powerful European continent, however, Turkey has been promoting demographic, rather than military, jihad. This attempt by Ankara to guarantee that Muslims outnumber Christians globally has been accompanied by the erection of mosques – “from Europe to Africa, from the Balkans to the Central Asia” — by Turkey’s government-funded Diyanet (Religious Affairs General Directorate).
Whose assessments, then, are liberal Europeans to believe regarding unfettered immigration? Those who consider the mass influx from Muslim countries a threat to liberty and security, or the honest planners and perpetrators of demographic replacement and Islamization?
Turkish propagandists also have been twisting facts to try to portray Greece as the aggressor.
Although Turkey knows that the islands are legally and historically Greek, Turkish authorities want to occupy and Turkify them, presumably to further the campaign of annihilating the Greeks, as they did in Anatolia from 1914 to 1923 and after.
Any attack against Greece should be treated as an attack against the West.
There is one issue on which Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its main opposition, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), are in complete agreement: The conviction that the Greek islands are occupied Turkish territory and must be reconquered. So strong is this determination that the leaders of both parties have openly threatened to invade the Aegean.
The only conflict on this issue between the two parties is in competing to prove which is more powerful and patriotic, and which possesses the courage to carry out the threat against Greece. While the CHP is accusing President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s AKP party of enabling Greece to occupy Turkish lands, the AKP is attacking the CHP, Turkey’s founding party, for allowing Greece to take the islands through the 1924 Treaty of Lausanne, the 1932 Turkish-Italian Agreements, and the 1947 Paris Treaty, which recognized the islands of the Aegean as Greek territory.
In 2016, Erdoğan said that Turkey “gave away” the islands that “used to be ours” and are “within shouting distance.” “There are still our mosques, our shrines there,” he said, referring to the Ottoman occupation of the islands.
Two months earlier, at the “Conference on Turkey’s New Security Concept,” Erdoğan declared: “Lausanne… has never been a sacred text. Of course, we will discuss it and struggle to have a better one.” Subsequently, pro-government media outlets published maps and photos of the islands in the Aegean, calling them the territory that “Erdoğan says we gave away at Lausanne.”
To realize his ultimate goal of leaving behind a legacy that surpasses that of all other Turkish leaders, Erdoğan has set certain objectives for the year 2023, the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Turkish Republic, and 2071, the 1,000th anniversary of the 1071 Battle of Manzikert, during which Muslim Turkic jihadists from Central Asia defeated Christian Greek Byzantine forces in the Armenian highland of the Byzantine Empire.
The idea behind these goals is to create nationalistic cohesion towards annexing more land to Turkey. To alter the borders of Turkey, however, Erdoğan must change or annul the Lausanne Treaty. Ironically, ahead of his two-day official visit to Greece in December — touted as a sign of a new era in Turkish-Greek relations — Erdogan told Greek journalists that the Lausanne Treaty is in need of an update. During his trip, the first official visit to Greece by a Turkish head of state in 65 years, Erdoğan repeated his mantra that the Lausanne Treaty must be revised.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said that Turkey “gave away” Greek islands that “used to be ours” and are “within shouting distance”. “There are still our mosques, our shrines there,” he said, referring to the Ottoman occupation of the islands. (Photo by Carsten Koall/Getty Images)
The following month, Erdoğan targeted CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, again accusing the party that signed the Lausanne Treaty of giving away the islands during negotiations. “We will tell our nation about [this],” Erdoğan said. What this statement means is that Erdogan accepts that the islands legally belong to Greece. Yet, at the same time, he calls the Greek possession of the territory “an invasion” — apparently because the islands were once within the borders of the Ottoman Empire — and he now wants them back.
Meanwhile, the CHP has been equally aggressive in its rhetoric, with Kılıçdaroğlu telling the Turkish parliament that Greece has “occupied” 18 islands. When Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos was described as “uncomfortable” with this statement, CHP’s deputy leader for foreign affairs, Öztürk Yılmaz, responded, “Greece should not test our patience.” Yılmaz also reportedly stated that “Turkey is much more than its government,” and that any Greek minister who provokes Turkey, will be “hit with a sledgehammer on the head…If [Kammenos] looks at history, he will see many examples of that.”
History is, in fact, filled with examples of Turks carrying out murderous assaults against Anatolian Greeks. In one instance, the genocidal assault against Greek and Armenian Christians in Izmir in 1922 was highlighted in a speech before the parliament by Devlet Bahceli, the head of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP):
“If they [the Greeks] want to fall into the sea again — if they feel like being chased after again — they are welcome. The Turkish nation is ready and has the faith to do it again. Someone must explain to the Greek government what happened in 1921 and 1922. If there is no one to explain it to them, we know how to stick like a bullet on the Aegean, rain from the sky like a blessed victory, and teach history to the couriers of ahl al-salib [the people of the cross] all over again.”
Turkish propagandists also have been twisting facts to try to portray Greece as the aggressor. Ümit Yalım, former secretary-general of the Ministry of National Defense, for example, said that “Greece has turned the Greek-occupied islands into arsenals and military outposts that Greece will use in its future military intervention against Turkey.”
Turkish politicians all seem to have their own motivations for their obsession with the islands: Traditional Turkish expansionism, Turkification of Hellenic lands, neo-Ottomanism and Islam’s flagship of conquest — jihad. There are also strategic reasons for their wanting to invade the islands, which can be understood in a statement made by Deputy Prime Minister Tuğrul Türkeş about Turkey’s control of Cyprus since 1974:
“There is this misinformation that Turkey is interested in Cyprus because there is a Turkish society there… Even if no Turks lived in Cyprus, Turkey would still have a Cyprus issue and it is impossible for Turkey to give up on that.”
The same attitude and mentality apply to the Aegean islands. Although Turkey knows that the islands are legally and historically Greek, Turkish authorities want to occupy and Turkify them, presumably to further the campaign of annihilating the Greeks, as they did in Anatolia from 1914 to 1923 and after. The destruction of any remnant of Greek culture that existed in Asia Minor, a Greek land prior to the 11th century Turkish invasion, is almost complete. There are fewer than 2,000 Greeks left in Turkey today.
Given that Turkey brutally invaded Cyprus in 1974, its current threats against Greece — from both ends of Turkey’s political spectrum — should not be taken lightly by the West. Greece is the birthplace of Western civilization. It borders the European Union. Any attack against Greece should be treated as an attack against the West. It is time for the West, which has remained silent in the face of Turkish atrocities, to stand up to Ankara.
Uzay Bulut is a Turkish journalist born and raised in Turkey. She is presently based in Washington D.C.
During his state visit to Greece in 2017, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made a forceful request that Greece agree to re-negotiate the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. Pictured: Erdogan and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in Athens on December 7, 2017. (Photo by Milos Bicanski/Getty Images)
A computer-generated rendering of the April 17 incident in which Turkish fighter jets harassed the helicopter carrying Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, and in response Greek fighter jets arrived to protect the helicopter. (Image source: ‘A News’ video screenshot)
Pictured: Thousands of supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan rally, waving Turkish flags, in Cologne, Germany, July 31, 2016. (Photo by Sascha Steinbach/Getty Images)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said that Turkey “gave away” Greek islands that “used to be ours” and are “within shouting distance”. “There are still our mosques, our shrines there,” he said, referring to the Ottoman occupation of the islands. (Photo by Carsten Koall/Getty Images)
