Lets talk about Greece

[Humodour]

I am just popping in to share a BBC news video about the Greek-Turkish relationship:

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8681835.stm

 

I am not trying to do any propaganda but I am pleasantly surprised that, for once, we are not being accused of being paranoid with Turkey and should spend less on military equipment.

 

Cheers.

 

 

Or you could post the REST of the story dude...

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8682390.stm

 

As I said, you're biased. You only hear what you want to about the Greece/Turkey relationship.

[ramza]

Mmmm, not really. Erdogan's official visit didn't do much to improve our relations with Turkey IMHO. Most agreements that were signed were about energetic, cultural, fight against illegal immigration and touristic cooperation. The main issues were not dealt with and each party camped on its own position.

 

The joint press conference of the 2 prime ministers was quite illustrative of this. I couldn't find any videos but feel free to make your own search (here's a link to a french article http://www.lesechos.fr/info/inter/afp_0025...-a-athenes.htm). Just a few points:

 

-Greece asked Turkey to not violate its air space and Turkey only proposed to disarm the planes, not stop the violations altogether.

-Greece asks Turkey to provide all the rights associated to freedom of religion to the Orthodox Church in Turkey and Turkey constantly denies them (check wiki, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecumenical_Pa...Constantinople). In the press release, the Turkish prime minister asked as a counterpart that we give legal authority to the Mufti (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mufti) of the turkish minority that lives in the North-eastern part of Greece (we already grant them all rights associated to freedom of religion).

-When asked about the casus belli according to which Turkey will start a war if we make use of our legitimate sovereignty to extend our territorial waters from 6 to 12 miles (which is the standard in international law, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_waters), the Turkish prime minister evaded the question.

 

I could go on like this. There are still many problems that are yet to be resolved...

 

So no, I don't think I am biased. The relations have not improved that much and it was all a charade as there was no agreement on the really important problems. By the way, there was another violation of our air space by a dozen of F16s just before Erdogan left the Turkish capital to come to Greece, so isn't that provocation?