Greece’s foreign ministry issued a statement over the weekend over the abrupt emergence of a “revisionist fervor” on the part of Turkish leadership regarding the 1923 Lausanne Treaty, and even a quip by the Turkish foreign ministry citing “problems” in the “ownership status of several (Aegean) islets.”
The latest eyebrow-raising exercise in Turkish statecraft came with this week’s statement by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who essentially bemoaned what he called the surrender of the eastern Aegean islands to Greece via the landmark Lausanne Treaty.
What followed was an exchange between Erdogan's ruling AKP and the Kemalist main opposition party over who “gave away more isles to the Greeks”, past and present.
“It’s obvious that the ruling party and the opposition in Turkey are quarreling over someone else’s barn,” was the response by official Athens, using an old Greek adage.
In a bid to deflect criticism by CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the Turkish foreign ministry on Saturday issued an announcement to decry charges by the latter as false. The opposition leader claimed that the current Erdogan government had transferred sovereignty of several isles and islets in the Aegean “to another country.”
In continuing, however, the Turkish ministry added that there “are a series of problems in relation to the Aegean, such as the ownership of certain islets”.
The Greek response merely noted that “certain people in the neighboring country’s interior want to drag Turkey into behavior that is in contrivance with international law, and in no way are suited to a European country.”
