An unexpected proposal made by Turkey's Energy Minister Taner Yildiz is turning many heads in Athens today following a report that claims that he spoke on Greek-Turkish joint oil exploration in the Aegean, revealing that the issue had been discussed between George Papandreou and Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan when the Turkish PM visited Athens in May 2010. “Turkey is open to such proposals (!), if there are joint projects".
Back then some reports claimed that Papandreou and Erdogan were discussing much more than was announced, or other things than how to improve Greek-Turkish relations, and to some degree most newspapers that reported this hinted that Papandreou was dividing up the Aegean, but that Papandreou would reach the point to accept assigning mining rights (or pooling) in the Aegean and retreat from our right to expand our territorial waters to 12 nautical miles, is indeed a surprise, since it is the first time this was said formally... and unfortunately for us it was Turkish diplomat who said it.
We found out later about this through WikiLeaks cables, but hearing it from the mouth of a Turkish politician indeed was humiliating and very frustrating.
According to a report on defencenet, the visit, which Papandreou rushed to characterize as being historical, was held on May 14, 2010, just a few weeks before Greece signed the first memorandum with the Troika (coincidence?), waiving all of Greece's sovereignty to its lenders at a time when he was also designing how to launch "joint research" projects for the exploration of hydrocarbons in the Greek seas. The announcement from Kastelorizo says it all!
LISTEN TO WHAT PANGALOS SAYS... TOTALLY SCANDALOUS
Think about it. Only a few months before Erdogan's visit (specifically in December 2009) Papandreou was trying to convince reporters at a formal news briefing that Greece had no hydrocarbons and several months later this very same man was dividing up OUR SEAS with Turkey!
There are only two conclusions here. Either the Turkish Minister is lying, or Papandreou is lying since he said he was certain that there was no oil in the Aegean.And if you think for one minute that Turkey has something to gain out of lying about this.. think again. We have heard so many lies from the mouth of George Papandreou that it is only safe to assume who the Pinocchio is here who has been playing us for fools.
We admit, we have been suspicious of George Papandreou from day one for many reasons. His anti-hellene tactics were all too obvious from before he was elected as prime minister. And we were right. Every decision his government made in less than 30 months in power was never in favor of Greece and its people and he will probably go down in history as the most hated prime minister that ever passed through Greek parliament. His Cabinet is no exception. They too are just as responsible, if not more, but taking on a decision to divide the Greek Aegean is a whole other issue. This is a national issue and concerns all Hellenes.
When Epikaira magazine wrote about this in July 2011 in a special report (titled SPECIAL REPORT– Hillary came to Greece to seal oil exploration deals) many people smirked at us here at hellasfrappe for translating and analyzing the article, but with every passing day and with the flood of reports lately that used hellasfrappe as a source about this very visit, we are more than convinced that the report was credible.
This combined with the reports we have featured from defencenet only prove our theory and belief that George Papandreou had one mission... and that was not to serve the people, but rather to fatten the wallets of western interests.
In that particular report we had also translated a separate report from another reporter who had said something very interesting about the "pooling of the Aegean" which is the gist of today's article.
The article was from Aristotle Vassilakis, and it appeared on the olympia.gr website. He had said that the "Greek crisis" was “fixed” because the overall stakes from the start were the oil and gas in the Aegean.
He said that from the (secret) surveys that were conducted the amount of natural gas in GREECE's national waters was estimated at some NINE TRILLION DOLLARS.
However, he noted, the suitors are many and everyone wants a piece of the action.
Unfortunately for Greece the Trans-Atlantic Protector requires (or rather ordered) that we open the doors to Turkey so that it too can benefit from this treasure in the depths of OUR SEAS.
“This is how I believe all pending issues concerning Greece will get resolved such as the subject of the continental shelf, (expansion of our territorial waters) and other related issues, and a possible casus belli will also end ...,” says Vassilakis.
He said that the formula for the pooling of oil was found, without giving details as to where. According to him, some 20% of revenues are to be given to Greece, a further 20% to Turkey and 60% will be directed to a US consortium, which together with Greek ship-owners, will exploit the oil.
Ankara and Washington can disagree on Iraq, Iran, Israel, or even on business in Central Asia, however, they are in full agreement on the issue of the Aegean and especially on the price that Greece "ought" to pay. Washington, according to him, has proposed that the Aegean be split in three, while Ankara has already shown us which part it wants with its bullying. And from what we learned since then, the biggest advocate for Nobel Energy in Washington is none other than Bill Clinton himself. (this by itself... says it all) (Click here to read this article)
Then on November 17, 2011 Greece’s Energy and Environment Minister George Papakonstantinou said on the sidelines of the Atlantic Council Black Sea Energy and Economic Forum in Constantinopole that he had spoken with Turkish officials about possibly connecting Greek Islands to Turkey. "We have always wanted to connect the islands to mainland Greece, but there is a possibility that we might connect islands to Turkish grids.” The man who helped Papandreou to orchestrate this whole crisis, who threw us into the hands of the Troika said that his ministry's new plan to interconnect into the Turkish electricity grid was in the framework of fulfilling the Greek islands’ electricity needs and could help to improve relations between both countries.
And finally let us not forget that in an unprecedented move which goes against our national foreign policy, the Deputy Minister for the Environment and Energy -who works for Papakonstantinou- Mr. Y. Maniatis described some areas in the Aegean as being "undefined zones" and "unclear" areas.
Maniatis -who is a member of the PASOK party and a close ally of the Papandreou clan- more or less left it to be understood a few days ago that he recognizes the claims by Turkey in the Aegean as well as in the Eastern Mediterranean. His statements which go beyond logic not only shocked us here at hellasfrappe who have been covering this issue for over a year now and have since day one said that the reason behind this debt crisis was because of Greece's natural reserves, it also shocked the military writers at defencenet who published the relevant article and they specifically said in one report that the declaration by Maniatis totally goes against Greece's foreign and national policies. "Not even Turkey would dare to make these types of statements" said a relevant report. (Click here to read report)
When you get right down to it politicians who make decisions and statements such as the ones mentioned above can only be termed as being traitors to their countries, so if they do not want this label plastered all over their heads then the Greek foreign ministry must immediately issue a statement on this subject and main opposition New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras should also raise this issue since he has made the matter of our EEZ one of his top priorities.