tagged: Aegean Greece Turkey, caus belli, National Security Policy, red book, revision, Tayyip Erdogan

Turkey: Casus Belli against Greece remains in the Red Book

Posted by keeptalkinggreece in Turkey-GR

Greece could be a friendly country if only there were not these stupid problems…! This is more or less the message that Ankara tries to convey to Athens and the European Union through the revision of  the National Security Policy Document. Greece keeps the status of  “external threat to Turkey” and thecasus belli ( a cause for war) remains over the 12 miles-dispute.

On Wednesday, Turkey’s  National Security Council (MGK)  agreed to make radical changes to the National Security Policy  document referred to as the “Red Book” or  the “Secret Constitution of Turkey”, in which the main internal and external threats to Turkey’s security are outlined.

Unlike earlier reports or better say ‘political leaks to the Turkish press’ , that Turkey would omit the casus belli   against Greece from its Red Book, powerful Turkish Generals remained adamant on the issue. No matter what Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s goals and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s vision might be of having “zero problems with neighbors”, the Turkish Army will never give up or revise  its own foreign policy towards Greece.

Is Greece just a … Friendly Foe?

According to Turkish newspaper Today’s Zaman , in the revised Red Book guidelines “Turkey still sees any Greek attempt to extend the country’s territorial waters to 12 nautical miles as a casus belli ”. And further that ”Greece is not included in the ‘external threats’ list either, aside from the ’12 mile problem’.

HurriyetDailyNews  writes: “In former versions of the document, Greece was seen as the principal source of a potential crisis due to a number of serious disagreements over the Aegean Sea. Though the document still outlines such problems, it also suggests developing all sorts of relations with the neighbor in order to pre-empt potential tensions. ”

The revised National Security Policy document will remain valid for the next five years.

Greece and Turkey have come to the brink of war three times in the past over territorial disputes in the Aegean. The two countries are at odds over the boundaries of their territorial waters and airspace in the Aegean due to the “peculiar geography of the Aegean Sea” claims Today’s Zaman, where some Greek islands are lined up along Turkey’s western coasts. In 1995,  Turkish Parliament declared any unilateral attempt by Greece to extend its territorial waters to 12 nautical miles from the current six miles as a casus belli.

Read more on MGK’s new policy on internal & external threats in TZ Israeli-caused instability makes its way to Turkey’s security document