by Aggelos Skordas
Turkey's far-right leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and political ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Devlet Bahceli, delivered yet another provocative speech targeting Greece and Cyprus ahead of the country’s snap parliamentary and presidential elections on June 24.
Bahceli, who has formed an electoral alliance with Erdogan as his party struggles in polls, was responding to criticism of a campaign video depicting Cyprus as Turkish territory and claims that the island is indeed Turkish. “What else are we to do? Cyprus is Turkish and will remain so”, Bahceli was quoted as saying during an election rally in Izmir on Sunday.
At the same time, he accused Greece of playing games in the Aegean, blaming Athens for the lately tense climate between the two neighbouring countries. The far-right leader called on Greeks not to forget the times “when their grandfathers drowned in the bottom of the sea”, in reference to the 1922 Catastrophe of Smyrna following the Greek Army defeat in the Asia Minor Campaign.
Relations between Athens and Ankara have reached a historic low within the last few months due to the Greek courts’ refusal to extradite the eight Turkish servicemen who fled to Greece and applied for asylum following the July 2016 failed coup attempt and Turkey’s continuing detention of two Greek army officers who strayed across the Turkish border in bad weather. Moreover, Turkish officials have repeatedly questioned Greek sovereignty over a number of Aegean islands, while fighter jets violate Greek airspace on a daily basis. In February a number of Turkish warships blocked an Italian drilling vessel from conducting hydrocarbon searches off the coasts of Cyprus.
In response to Turkish officials’ continuous remarks on Greece’s sovereignty over the Aegean, President Prokopis Pavlopoulos stressed that the borders of Greece are clearly defined by international and European law without any hint of a “gray zone”. The Greek Navy will continue to protect these borders and defend Greece’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) once it is delineated in accordance with the provisions of the Law of the Sea, he highlighted during an inspection of the Hellenic Navy Fleet in Faliro Bay, southern Athens. “I have repeatedly stressed that [the Law of the Sea] is binding, based on legal precedent at the International Court of Justice at The Hague, in the form of generally accepted rules of international law, including for states that have not signed the 1982 Montego Bay Convention”, Pavlopoulos added.
The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) campaign video depicting Cyprus as Turkish territory at 0.44 sec: