Turkish Forum English

Category: Greece

  • Izmir (Symrna) arsons, Greeks and Turks

    Izmir (Symrna) arsons, Greeks and Turks

    Denis O’Callaghan’s letter (April 9th) condemning President McAleese’s laying of a wreath at the tomb of Ataturk because he was “responsible for the ethnic cleansing of Smyrna in Asia Minor” is a very partial view of history.The Turkish capture of Smyrna occurred as the culmination of a Greek attempt to conquer Anatolia, which led to large scale ethnic cleansing of Muslims, starting in Smyrna itself and reaching to where it was stopped by Ataturk, at the gates of Ankara.The Greeks were victims of their own irredentist dreams of a new Byzantium and their misplaced faith in Lloyd George, in attempting to impose the punitive Treaty of Sèvres on Turkey.In any other context, such as that applied to the second World War, the recapture of Smyrna would be seen as an act of liberation and the blame for the unfortunate events of September 1922 placed at the hands of the original aggressors. – Yours, etc,Dr PAT WALSH,Leyland Crescent,Ballycastle, Co Antrim.
    From The Author of
    Forgotten Aspects Of Ireland’s Great War on Turkey1919–1924(Unutulan Yönleriyle İrlanda’nın Türkiye’ye Karşı Büyük Savaşı: 1914–1924) Dr. Pat Walsh.  ATHOL BOOKS, Belfast 2009

    Contributed by Mr Yusuf Cinar, Mr Nizam Bulut, Galway, Ireland

  • Greek sues over photo on ‘Turkish’ yoghurt in Sweden

    Greek sues over photo on ‘Turkish’ yoghurt in Sweden

    A Greek man is suing a dairy in Sweden for 50 million kronor ($6.9m; £4.5m) for using his image on pots of Turkish-style yoghurt, Swedish media report.

    Turkish Yogurt

    The man only found out his moustachioed face featured on the containers of Turkisk Yoghurt made by Lindahls when a friend living in Stockholm told him.

    Athanasios Varzanakos told Swedish Radio his friend “was annoyed and asked how it was possible” when informed.

    The dairy said it bought the photograph in good faith from an image library.

    Chief executive Anders Lindahl said it had come as a shock when the Greek man lodged a 40-page legal complaint saying that the company had used a misleading image because he had no links with Turkey.

    “We bought it from a photo agency so we assumed that everything was in order,” Mr Lindahl told the AFP news agency.

    The image remains on the Lindahls website despite the legal action.

    Relations between Greece and Turkey have long been strained and at times have turned into outright hostility.

    BBC

  • Turkey and Greece hope better ties lower defense costs

    Turkey and Greece hope better ties lower defense costs

    By SELCAN HACAOGLU

    ANKARA, Turkey

    Turkey and Greece on Thursday announced a series of measures to build confidence between the rival neighbors, including joint military training designed in part to ease years of tension over airspace and sea boundaries and a local arms race.

    Turkey’s Foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the new moves ultimately could help limit arms spending.

    As well, 10 key ministers, including those in charge of foreign and European Union affairs as well as energy and economy would meet at least twice a year, Davutoglu and Greece’s Deputy Foreign Minister Dimitris Droutsas announced.

    The ministers said their armies would increase cooperation through joint training and conferences. The move is designed to encourage Turkish and Greek officers, who have for decades regarded each other as potential enemies, to work with each other.

    The countries have been at odds for years over flight procedures over the Aegean Sea border. For decades, their warplanes have often engaged in mock dogfights.

    “The measures will boost confidence between the two peoples and armies,” Droutsas told a joint news conference with Davutoglu.

    Greece is suffering from a severe economic crisis and plans to cut defense spending in 2011 and 2012. Responding to a question over whether Turkey would follow Greece’s lead, Davutoglu said that there would be no need for arms spending if the neighbors could build a “common future.”

    “We have a vision and it is not based on mutual threat but on mutual interests,” Davutoglu said. “If we manage to build a common future, there will be no need for defense spending.”

    Davutoglu pointed out that his government has already reduced military spending, saying the government has spent more on education than arms in recent years.

    EU-member Greece supports Turkey’s membership bid in the European Union, hoping that it will help solve territorial issues. The largest snag is the divided island of Cyprus where Turkey keeps about 40,000 troops.

    Turkey began EU membership talks in 2005, but negotiations on some policy have been frozen over Turkey’s refusal to allow ships and planes from Cyprus to enter its ports and airspace, and the EU says Ankara must open its airspace to the EU member if it wants to get closer to membership itself.

    In return, Turkey insists on the lifting of what it says is the unofficial trade embargo on the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state in the north of the island, which was divided into a Greek Cypriot south and a Turkish Cypriot north following Turkey’s 1974 invasion.

    Businessweek

  • Is time running out for a reunification deal in Cyprus?

    Is time running out for a reunification deal in Cyprus?

    cyprusmapIs time running out for a deal in Cyprus?

    Later this month elections in the Turkish-occupied north of Cyprus could see President Mehmet Ali Talat being ousted in favour of a hardliner, Dervis Eroglu.

    Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkey invaded following a coup by Greek Cypriot extremists, bent on union with Greece.

    Mr Talat was elected in 2005, having promised to deliver a reunification deal with the Greek Cypriots but, despite being locked in talks with his opposite number, Demetris Christofias, for the past 18 months he has been unable to announce a deal.

    Both Greece and Turkey say they want the issue resolved and the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon visited Cyprus in February and urged both sides to show “courage”.

    In 2004 a previous deal, the so-called Annan Plan, was approved by Turkish Cypriots in a referendum but rejected by Greek Cypriots.

    Do you live in Cyprus or were you born there? Do you think the two communities will ever be able to live together? What do you blame for the failure to reach a deal? What do you think the main sticking points are? You can tell us your experiences using the form below. If you are happy to be contacted by the BBC, please include your phone number.

    , 2 April 2010

  • Broke Greece should sell islands: Merkel allies

    Broke Greece should sell islands: Merkel allies

    AFP – Bankruptcy-threatened Greece should sell some of its uninhabited islands to raise cash, two allies of Chancellor Angela Merkel were quoted as saying Thursday.

    Greece

    “The Greek state must sell stakes in companies and also assets such as, for example, unpopulated islands,” Frank Schaeffler, a member of parliament for the pro-business Free Democrats, Merkel’s coalition partner, told the Bild daily.

    A member of Merkel’s own conservative CDU party, Marco Wanderwitz, said Athens should provide collateral for any money it receives from the European Union to help it out of its debt crisis.

    “In this case, certain Greek islands also come into question,” added Wanderwitz.

    “We give you cash, you give us Corfu,” the Bild commented.

    Greece has around 6,000 islands off its coast, of which only 227 are inhabited, according to the country’s National Tourism Office website.

    The cash-strapped country Wednesday launched a fresh round of draconian austerity measures in a bid to rein in a ballooning budget deficit that is more than four times above EU limits.

    The Socialist government increased sales, tobacco and alcohol taxes and cut public sector holiday allowances to save 4.8 billion euros (6.5 billion dollars), equal to about two percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

    Pensions in the public and private sector were also frozen.

    Merkel is set to hold talks with Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou on Friday to discuss the situation in Greece.

    France 24

  • Riots break out in Greece on anniversary of police shooting

    Riots break out in Greece on anniversary of police shooting

    Greek police clash with students in Athens as thousands march on anniversary of death of Alexandros Grigoropoulos

    Athens riots

    Police fired teargas at rioters who threw rocks and firecrackers in central Athens as thousands gathered to mark the first anniversary of the police shooting of a teenager.

    Clashes broke out as about 3,000 people, mostly students, anarchists and leftists, began a march to parliament. More protests were expected tomorrow. An evening memorial service was planned in the Exarchia district, where 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos was shot dead.

    Violence also broke out in Thessaloniki, Greece‘s second-largest city, where demonstrators threw petrol bombs at police and smashed the front of a Starbucks cafe.

    More than 6,000 police were deployed across greater Athens amid fears that the demonstrations under way in the capital and other Greek cities would turn increasingly violent. Concern was heightened by reports that far-left groups and anarchists from other European countries have travelled to Greece for the protests.

    Grigoropoulos was shot by a policeman on the evening of 6 December 2008, in Exarchia, a central Athens neighbourhood of bars and cafes popular with anarchist groups. Within a few hours of his death, riots spread from the capital to several cities, taking the government by surprise. An embattled police force took a passive approach as rioters looted and burned shops in violence that lasted two weeks.

    The new socialist government, which has faced a spate of attacks by far-left and anarchist groups, since coming to power in October, has vowed not to tolerate any violence during today’s anniversary.

    Police yesterday detained about 160 youths and raided what they described as a firebomb-making hideout in the district of Keratsini, near the port of Piraeus. A memorial gathering last night at the spot where Grigoropoulos was killed began peacefully, although clashes broke out in the area later between rock-throwers and riot police. Police arrested 14 people, including five Italians and three Albanians.

    Dozens of police, some in riot gear and others on motorbikes, stood guard throughout the district on Saturday night. Apart from the brief clash, the area was quiet, with heavy rain helping keep people off the streets.

    Greece’s civil protection minister, Michalis Chrisochoidis, who is also in charge of the police, said earlier this week that people had been right to demonstrate against the teenager’s death, but further riots would not be tolerated.

    “Without doubt (Grigoropoulos’s death) was an act of extreme police violence and misconduct that has scarred our collective memory,” Chrisochoidis said. “Young people were right to take to the streets to express their outrage. But we will not tolerate a repeat of the violence and terror in the centre of Athens and other cities. We will not surrender Athens to vandals.”

    The Guardian