Though he made no mention of Greek-Turkish affairs at the NATO summit in Madrid, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a news conference in Madrid today made clear that he will continue to actively pursue his challenges to Greek sovereignty.
At the summit, Erdogan was focused exclusively on forcing Sweden and Finland – two model European liberal democracies, to change their laws regarding counter-terrorism (to meet his demands regarding fighting the Kurdish PKK and its Syrian offshoots), and to lift an arms embargo against Turkey in order to secure an invitation to join NATO – and repairing ties with US President Joe Biden as a result of his setting aside his threat to veto the NATO membership of the two Nordic countries, and he fully succeeded in achieving both objectives.
Indeed on the very day of the Biden-Erdogan talks, after Erdogan had signed a memorandum with the Swedish and Finnish leaders, US Secretary of Defense Celeste Wallander was touting Washington’s support (without naming the aircraft or going into details of the deal) for the sale of 40 F-16 fighter planes to Turkey and the upgrade of dozens more, for which Ankara pushed strongly after it was kicked out of the F-35 construction programme, due to its purchase of Russian S-400 missile systems, as a boost to the Alliance’s strength.
The general consensus among observers was that Biden had offered assurances that he will try to push the deal through Congress, and Erdogan told reporters that a Turkish delegation will work to rally support among Republicans in Congress.
On 17 May, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis had urged Congress not to offer its necessary approval of the deal.
That is precisely why Erdogan triumphantly declared during his meeting with Biden that he was leaving Madrid with his “hands full”.
Erdogan demands demilitarisation of Greek Aegean islands, again
Erdogan again criticised Mitsotakis for allegedly breaking a deal not to involve third countries in Greek-Turkish affairs I his address to Congress.
Erdogan reiterated that a number of Greek Aegean islands must be demilitarised under the terms of the treaties of Lausanne and Paris, but Athens maintains it has deployed legitimate defences due to the 1974 Turkish invasion and occupation of Cyprus and the 130,000-troop Aegean Army on the coasts of Anatolia that poses a continual threat to Greece’s sovereignty over the islands.
Erdogan slams expansion of US military presence in Greece
Erdogan again slammed the expansion of the American military presence in Greece, including the expansion of the geopolitically crucial Souda Bay base in Crete and the creation of a base in the port city of Alexandroupolis, not far from Turkey, which he said he views as a threat to Turkish security and not a response to Russian expansionism.
Though Ankara has for months routinely conducted flights of war planes over inhabited Greek islands and a hair’s breadth from Alexandroupolis in at least one instance, Erdogan claimed that Greek fighter jets violated Turkish air space 147 times, and that Athens must offer an accounting for that.
