An unexpected supporter for Greece, from a side which is not known for its positive approach. Conservative German CSU politician and leader of European People’s Party fraction in the European Parliament, Manfred Weber, criticized Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for challenging the Lausanne Treaty of 1923 and setting in borders between Greece and Turkey in question.
Respecting borders is a “fundamental issue between partners” Weber told German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung adding that setting the Lausanne Treaty in question is a “further step in Erdogan’s verbal escalation.”
“We appeal to Erdogan to not use this language anymore,” Weber stressed.
The CSU politician underlined that one is aware how difficult it had been to regulate the course of the border between Turkey and Greece. “Everyone should strive not to break up old wounds,” said Weber,who was together with his party friends one of the driving forces behind the Resolution of the EP to freeze accession talks with Turkey.with his party friends,
The Treaty of Lausanne was signed in 1923 between the Victory Powers of the First World War and the Turkish leadership under the founder of the Republic Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
Erdogan apparently claims the islands of the Dodecanese in the eastern Aegean Sea, like Rhodes and Kos, which the Ottoman Empire had lost to Italy ten years before the Lausanne Treaty. The became part of Greece in 1948 after the WWII.
“But Erdoğan is probably less interested in historical correctness than to ultimately attack those who back then presented the Treaty “as a victory”, SZ notes “and these were Ataturk and his companions and nowadays the Kemalists who the Turkish government hates so much.”
More on Lausanne Treaty, Greece,Turkey and Erdogan here
PS when it comes to Turkey, arch-conservative German politicians support Greece.
