Φίλιπ Κρίστοφερ: Να αποτραπεί η πώληση των F-16 στην Τουρκία (also in English)

1. B”H None can miss the irony of a failed Cypriot American leader presuming to advance our Greece’s national interests. He and our compatriots are scandalously misled by a hyper-ethnocentrism that actually undermine the Mitsotakis government’s flush with satisfaction in the wake of the just-concluded NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. A chastened Türkiye President Erdogan swallowed hard and accepted the requirement that the NATO members unanimously endorse Sweden’s accession; received a likely Greek light for the acquisition of F-16 fighters, provided he doesn’t engage in provocative Aegean isles overflights; and deferred into a distant future (absent adoption and practice of democratic norms) the Ottoman’s ambition to enter the European Union. As to the ethically-compromised chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Bob Menendez, he can delay but not prevent the President’s dominant prerogative to direct military and international affairs. And, please, the legislator is not to be compared with Lord Byron; the contrast is demeaning to Hellas, and history! My suggestion to Philip Christopher is to ask for his resignation from PSEKA (he’s not alone), and a prolonged period of silence to nurse and reflect on his and our community’s enormous disappointments from the inadequacy of leadership. Best for our extreme ideologues reassess their wrong positions, and, in humility, support our President Biden’s initiatives, and the Greek premier’s friendlier resolve to attain mutual coexistence with a hopefully reformed President Erdogan. Inshallah. With fraternal affection, Asher, a.k.a. Zorba the Jew 🙏😩🇬🇷😢🇨🇾🇺🇸

   Reply

   • Hey “Zorba,”

     You did not address Mr. Christopher’s concerns articulated in his letter. You just went on your usual anti-Hellenic diatribe with the punchline “with a hopefully reformed President Erdogan.” Now that is hilarious.

     btw, I do agree with you on the Byron/Menendez comparison. And I very rarely agree with you on anything. And as you very well know, I use your opinions on Greek matters as a point of reference. If you for instance publicly support one thing, I support the opposite.

     But I would like to make a point to not only you but also to Mr. Christopher, Mr. Tsakas and his readership. I believe at this point in the developments between Greece/Turkey/Cyprus that the F-16 issue is a “Trojan Horse.”

     While we’ve been inundated with the issue of Turkey getting or not getting the F-16’s, we have been neglecting, to say the least, the much larger issues at hand, namely the behind the scenes negotiations regarding the Aegean, aka Prespes of the Aegean, as well as the secret negotiations regarding Greece’s Exclusive Economic Zone in the eastern Mediterranean and the treasonous possibility of co-exploitation with Turkey.

     PM Mitsotakis can not be trusted when it comes to Greek/Turkish issues, especially knowing his relationship with the current US administration and its objectives in the eastern Mediterranean, Amos Hochstein’s energy policy and Alexandra Papadopoulou’s conduit role notwithstanding. The Biden administration can not be allowed to dictate foreign policy to a sovereign nation and the Greek Parliament can not allow PM Mitsotakis to take orders from Biden/Blinken by giving the PM an increased parliamentary majority and follow through on those orders.

     What is at hand is the security of the Aegean islands. The Turkish overflights are not the problem. If anything these overflights are the best real-life training our Greek pilots get when they take off and chase the Turkish planes back into Anatolia, locked and loaded. Any negotiations to demilitarize the islands will be a treasonous act, especially with the threat of Turkey’s 130,000-strong Aegean Army, aka, Fourth Army, just a few miles across the sea. Any attempts to solve outstanding Aegean issues with Turkey in the International Court of Justice in The Hague without including Greek claims including multiple Turkish violations of the Lausanne Treaty (rights ofGreek minority in Imvros, Tenedos and Constantinople, Christian minority in Smyrni and Pontus, Theological Seminary in Halki, Ecumenical Patriarch, Hagia Sophia mosque status), demand that Turkey’s illegal occupation of Cyprus end and all Turkish troops as well as migrants from Turkey leave the island, demand 12 nautical miles in Greece’s airspace as well as the 12-mile equivalent in its territorial sea in accordance with international law:

     PART II
     TERRITORIAL SEA AND CONTIGUOUS ZONE
     SECTION 1. GENERAL PROVISIONS
     Article2
     Legal status of the territorial sea, of the air space over the territorial sea and of its bed and subsoil
     1. The sovereignty of a coastal State extends, beyond its land territory and internal waters and, in the case of an archipelagic State, its archipelagic waters, to an adjacent belt of sea, described as the territorial sea.
     2. This sovereignty extends to the air space over the territorial sea as well as to its bed and subsoil.
     3. The sovereignty over the territorial sea is exercised subject to this Convention and to other rules of international law.
     https://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/part2.htm

     without threats of casus belli.

     Greece’s Exclusive Economic Zone in the eastern Mediterranean is just that, Greece’s and no one else’s. Any attempts at co-exploitation with Turkey will be considered acts of treason. When the Sultan says Kazan-Kazan (win-win), he basically means “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is ours.” That is unacceptable and if PM Mitsotakis or anyone in his government even hints at such a scenario, please be 1000% sure that $$$Billions in bribes have been offered.

     200 years ago the following stanza was written by Dionysios Solomos:

     Δυστυχιά του, ω δυστυχιά του,
     οποιανού θέλει βρεθεί
     στο μαχαίρι σου αποκάτου
     και σ’ εκείνο αντισταθεί.

     It’s a warning to all the traitors.

     Georgios Gialtouridis

     Reply

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