It’s a shame if nothing we do pleases Ankara—be it our marine parks or territorial waters, our EEZ or electric cable, our islands or European defence—but we can live with it.
Mitsotakis announced (from Odessa) that any third country that wants to have access to Safe programme funding to play a role in armament planning, purchases and cooperation “would need at least some alignment with the European Common Foreign and Defence Policy” (11/6).
And I don’t think his comments were aimed at Norway.
I don’t doubt that Turkey has supporters in the European Union and NATO. Life is full of fans who support the wrong teams.
But when I hear that Turkey is a “big country”, meaning we can’t ignore it, I can’t help but recall Vasilis Avlonitis’ killer line from the classic Greek comedy The Grooms of Happiness from 1962: “Big, big… but not like the Peloponnese!”.
Because it is not our job to determine the size or importance of Turkey, nor to draw conclusions.
Our job is to defend our national interests. And anyone who can’t get that into their head, on their head be it!
Obviously, we’re not obsessed with making things hard for Turkey. We have other serious matters to concern ourselves with.
Provided, of course, that Turkey doesn’t make our lives difficult, either, by claiming unfounded ‘interests’ every five minutes.
I don’t know what Ankara is doing in Syria or Kurdistan, but the Aegean is an area of primarily Greek primacy. You only have to look at the map to see that.
And the sooner the Turks get that into their heads, the better it will be for all of us.
Of course, we exercise our primacy in line with international law and rules, with respect for international navigation and the rights of the region’s secondary powers.
But Turkey isn’t a superpower—it’s not even a regional policeman—, so it can’t have interests wherever it fancies and define them any which way it wants.
If I’m not mistaken, we shrugged off Turkish rule two hundred years ago—back when Turkey actually was “big”. So I can’t see why anyone would want to slip it back in through the window.
For that reason, and because good accounts make good neighbours, it’s better to stick to good accounts.
After we’ve worked them out.
