SITUATION REPORT
JANUARY 7, 2018
Copyright: Research Institute for European and American Studies (www.rieas.gr) Publication date: 7 January 2018.
SUMMARY: Turkey’s neo-Ottoman posture and president Erdogan’s pugnacious stance continue to feed the Greek-Turkish crisis. Erdogan’s recent visit to Greece confirmed the Turkish president’s aggressive tactics and demands for renegotiating the Lausanne Treaty. Turkey’s provocations in the Aegean continue unabated and Ankara exploits illegal alien flows from its shores to Greece as a weapon to bully and blackmail Athens. Turkish senior government officials make inflammatory statements about the use of force to reclaim purported “Turkish” islands and islets in the Aegean and Turkey pursues the tactic of “hot incidents” to promote its claims upon Greece. With the European Union unable to provide any true relief or opposition to Turkey’s expansionist tendencies, Greece’s only realistic hope for ensuring a peaceful balance in the Aegean is security cooperation with the United States...Read more