German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a statement she recently made said, “All EU countries are obligated to support Greece”; an expression very far from the impartial mediator role she had assumed for some time between Turkey and Greece. Merkel went on to say, “All European Union countries must support Greece in the East Mediterranean matter,” but also added, “I tried to prevent tensions from escalating. This is only possible if the two sides keep on talking. The discussions that concern the division of economic regions there can only proceed together. Germany is working to achieve this,” claiming that she is still mediating.
Yet, despite the mediator role she has assumed, by calling EU countries to almost unconditionally stand with Greece, listen to and support it, she is openly stating with whom she stands. This is nothing other than a confession that the impartial role she has been playing until now is aimed at distracting Turkey for the benefit of the Greek side, and focused on convincing it, if not directing and deceiving it.
Yet, it is Turkey whose rights are openly being trampled on in the Mediterranean and the Aegean. If EU countries stopped for a second and gave Turkey a hearing, even if not as much as they listen to Greece, they would clearly see the injustice. The greed displayed by Greece in efforts to deprive Turkey of all its territorial waters due to the islands and take over them itself is very obvious. The Greek administration wants a 40,000-square-kilometer maritime zone for the 10-square-kilometer Meis Island, which is within Turkey’s territorial waters. Though Turkey is a mainland with a more than a 2,000-kilometer coast on the Mediterranean, the area given to it for this island, which is within its territorial waters, is less than those given to other Greek islands.
So to speak, Turkey has been put in a position where it cannot even cast a fishing net on the maritime zone they want to draw. Yet, such controversial matters are not new to the world. Turkey and Greece are not the first example. Such controversy exists between France and the U.K., between Italy and Greece, and many other countries. It is obvious how such disputes are resolved. We have the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and its provisions concerning this matter are quite clear and certainly prove that Turkey is right. Turkey is not demanding a special privilege for itself in international law. Turkey is not attacking; it is currently defending itself.
Of course, Turkey is not saying no to dialogue either. However, if those who are going to enter dialogue with Turkey regarding this matter mobilize in favor of the other side, and are conditioned to listen to the Greek side’s theories while negotiating, how can the dialogue yield any results under such circumstances?
We have well aware that this so-called impartial stance during dialogue and mediation is a fool’s errand. During the Cyprus issue, when the Greek side was included in the EU as one of the two parties of the island, all of the EU’s mediation and problem-solving attempts signified nothing other than efforts to somehow distract Turkey and impose on it the Greek side’s terms. For years, while the EU and Germany in particular have been playing their roles as mediator in all negotiations in Cyprus through a complete setup in favor of the Greek side, with the terms they impose on Turkey via these means, they use Turkey’s rejections as an excuse to refrain from starting numerous negotiations with Ankara.
In this respect, the EU has shown its intention and approach regarding the matter, and has thus completely lost its reliability and impartiality. Expecting a just, impartial and honest conviction from the EU regarding any matter is in vain.
In fact, these clear statements from the German chancellor reveal Germany’s historical and cultural ties with Greece, and all the principles they have forsaken for these ties. These ties are rooted in the Greek heritage and complement the Crusader solidarity. There can be no other explanation for this bigoted partiality. Germany considers itself the owner of all of Europe’s cultural and philosophical heritage, which it assumes is rooted in Ancient Greece, and does not hesitate to ignore the principles it presented in the EU conventions for the sake of laying claim to this heritage. The solidarity to which it is calling EU countries despite this clear injustice, is a typical Crusader solidarity with Greece.
During the preparation of the EU constitution in 2005, Turkey objected to the EU being a Christian Union, and had it recorded as secular (that this is what it should be). Though secularism was recorded in that constitution, which was later suspended, as the attitude towards Turkey has been increasingly exclusivist by the day, its Christian Union nature further came to the fore.
The chancellor’s clear deviation from justice in the face of an open injustice, and in fact, her call to others to take this wrong path along with her, can be explained with a Crusader motivation only – and such motivation is not a good sign for either the EU or Germany.
