Greece’s Deputy foreign Minister Giorgos Katrougalos invited Turkey to carry out referendum rallies to expand powers for president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The move comes amid a severe diplomatic row between Turkey and the Netherlands and when one after the other European countries prohibit Turkish politicians from campaigning.
At the same time, the deputy foreign minister’s announcement stuns diplomats and politicians given the recent tension between the two neighboring countries. Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias and Defense Minister Panos Kammenos speak of Turkey’s “provocative behavior” towards Greece and “exporting its own nervousness.”
Speaking to Skai TV on Monday, Katrougalos said “I cannot judge the internal decisions of other countries, but it is the rule in Europe to have such gatherings. The only problem that arises is that of public security.”
The deputy foreign minister was referring to the Muslim minority in Thrace, roughly estimated 100,000 people, who are ethnic Turks.
“There is no reason to prohibit communication with them [Turkey] and on the other hand, there is no reason to feed the tension that currently exists in Europe and could also lead to problems in our bilateral relations,” Katrougalos said and stressed that ‘there have been visits by Turkish officials in Thrace in the past.”
Foreign minister Nikos Kotzias said that “Turkey is trying to convey its nervousness to third countries.“
Defense minister Panos Kammenos who has been massively targeted by Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that Turkey has “a particularly challenging behavior, not only against Greece, but also against the allied countries.”
As Ankara has been firing diplomatic shots at every possible EU direction, its Armed Forces sent fighter jets and a spy plane type C-235 and violated the Athens FIR eight times on Monday.
Greece is known to be a generous and friendly country not matter how angrily and provocative Erdogan and other Turkish politicians behave. Apparently Athens won’t let a couple of Greek territory violations and Turkey’s provocations to spoil the positive atmosphere between the two countries. Now, everyone in Greece is wondering whether Katrougalos’ expressed the policy of the whole government or merely his own point of view.
And what if the Turks want to do that on one of those “disputed” islands in the Aegean? No Turks there or even people at all but you know, just as a political stunt?
and TR F-16 flying over? Easy: GR will forbid it for security reasons.
‘ethnic turks’ in thraki? everybody used to spit blood if someone described them that way…they were to be described as ‘muslim minority’, islamicised ‘pomaks’ and gypsies…but never turks. i suppose now things have turned full circle and they are again ‘turks’…
pomaks and roma are not turks
Many of them have self-identified as Turks, as Turkey offered them protection and support. It is the failure of the Greek state in the past to have excluded these ethnic groups from full Greek citizenship rights, and they were open to manipulation by Turkey. If they call themselves ethnic Turks, they are entitlted to do so. Even if they are originally not.
i know…pomaks are slav speaking descendants of Pavlican monophysites scattered through Rodope, and gypsies are what they are everywhere…
i just remember the years when ahmet sadik & co. in komotini were vilified by every good orthodox greek as a treasonous 5th column of ankara for describing themselves as turks…
ironically, for years the greek govt. described them as turks too…then someone got the clever idea in the mid 1980s to change their official designation to ‘pomaks and tourkogyftoi’. crude ideology, it can be filed away with the slogan ‘macedonia is greece for 5000 years’ – which also dates from the same period …i used to travel through thrace back and forth from saloniki to istanbul during the years i was working on my book, ‘oi teleftaioi ellines tis polis’ /last greeks of istanbul.
and this is you… 🙂
but you’re right, it may be misunderstood, i should add an info link.
All Turks not allowed to rally in Europe should get cheap flight tickets fast, it’s not only good for
tourism, it will piss off Europe that closed the eyes against Turkish provos in the Aegean in 2017 and now have the results for this stupidity at home and Merkel’s ignorance regarding threats with accidents against Kammenos and his helicopter-crew while she was visiting Ankara will become public as compliance, also big mouths in Vienna and Budapest that wanna “help” with “border protection” will end up in void training their marines in Lake Constanca.
As seen in Germany (Oberhausen: König Pilsener Arena) the AKP gots even no problems with being sponsored by German beer companies
Now, whatever you say, morons like our dear deputy foreign minister cannot add to the solution of any issue. Let us not forget that it was the same retarded individual who killed all self-employed professionals from the 1st of the year, at the order of the 4th Reich.
Nothing good or serious can come out of such miserable Quislings.