Faithful to its tactics, Turkey decided to issue permits for oil and gas exploration south of the islands of Rhodes and Kastelorizo. In a normal democracy, or any other civilized country, this would be a cause for war. Nonetheless with a government that bows to Ankara the news has yet to even be brodcasted in the mainstream media. Aside from protothema, defencenet and a few blogs, very few people know that Turkey is actually planning to begin oil and gas exploration in Greek territorial waters!
The decision was taken on March 16, but it was only published on Friday in the Turkish government gazette. Of course there was a response by Greek Foreign Ministry spokesman Grigoris Delavekouras who said that the determination of Turkey to move ahead with this venture and for licensing petroleum activities, in areas south of Rhodes and Kastelorizo, is contrary to the rules that are dictated in the Law Of The Sea, but aside from the statement we have yet to see any real movement from the Greek side.
Delavekouras underlined that Ankara cannot "undermine sovereign rights and powers of Greece, based on international law" and we agree, but Greece cannot sit back either and allow Turkey to slap it silly any longer either!
The spokesman said that the Greek Foreign ministry will take all necessary steps to safeguard and defend the sovereign rights of Greece, but we are not convinced.
We speculate that this is all pre-arranged. And the reason we believe this is because they might use this "sudden new crisis" as a reason to force the two larger political parties to unite. Main opposition New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras has repeatedly said that he will not join forces with the socialists again, but the socialist PASOK party of Evangelos Venizelos insists that Samaras is doing the wrong thing and PASOK needs to be in the government.
Now we are just speculating... but we know that the PASOK party has had extremely friendly relations with Turkey, as we also know that their former leader George Papandreou had at some point conducted secret diplomacy with the Turks, as well as almost gave them half the Aegean. So obviously this makes us believe that they might use this in order to force Samaras into a new cooperation government!
PASOK has to be eliminated... it cannot ever be allowed to rule this country again. But we are afraid that the "shady" system that supports this party is difficult to crumble and we are afraid that they would even going as far as placing our nation in an even deeper crisis just to maintain their role in power.
And if the threat of war sounds a little too far fetched for you, then think again. The mobility of the Turkish army over the last few days has been escalating all the way from the Evros border and down to Cyprus. Indeed it has scheduled military exercises (EFES), which are apparently set to begin a few days after the Greek elections, and we read that it is experiencing increased tension in its southern boarder with Syria... but is this why there has been so much mobilization, or is something else planned?
Certainly we are not defense analysts and cannot responsibly say yes or no, but after reading various reports today from key analysts we can only assume that something is definitely brewing... and it does not look positive.
One such report was published on defencenet claiming that the Greek Armed Forces are getting prepared to experience a "very heated" summer because Turkey always staged its attacks when our country was experiencing political turmoil. Some examples include Cyprus in 1974, 1996 on the islet of Imia, or the crisis in 2009 on the little islands of Stroggyli and Ro.
Also, we don't think the surprise visit by Defense Minister Dimitirs Avramopoulos to the islands of Farmakonisi, Agathonisi and the "Anthsti (QOL) Palaiokastriti" camp on the island of Samos was conducted by chance either. We believe that Greece wanted to send a message to Ankara since Turkey directly disputes the territorial waters around these islands and claims that they belong to her!
Indeed the presence of the Defense Minister on the islands was a smart move, but remarkably Turkey answered with 11 violations of IDP;s and breached the Greek FIR 8 times west of Lesbos and Chios! And Turkey did not stop there. On Saturday the Turkish Sabah newspaper said in an article that the permits it issued for oil exploration near Rhodes and Kastelorizo was its "answer" to Greece!
We want to see what our government will do now... so far, all we hear is silence.
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