Turkey borscht recipe
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Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Thursday he still believes it is possible to resolve his country’s differences with Turkey by speaking with Turkey’s president, and stressed that the two neighbors will not go to war. Relations between the two NATO allies and historic regional rivals have been particularly strained for nearly three years, with alarming rhetoric from Turkish officials. Mitsotakis said during a session at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Thursday. We should be able to sit down with Turkey as reasonable adults and resolve our main difference, which is the delimitation of maritime zones in the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean.
Greece had managed to resolve similar disagreements with Italy and Egypt and was contemplating taking a similar dispute with Albania to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. As long as you agree on the playbook, and the playbook is, you resolve your problems according to international law . It’s usually not a good approach because you end up poisoning your public opinion. Both he and Erdogan face elections in the first half of this year. But even if we agree to disagree, we can do so in a civilized manner.
I do not consider it impossible to find a solution with President Erdogan. Long at odds over a series of issues, including territorial and energy exploration rights in the Aegean Sea and eastern Mediterranean, Greece and Turkey have come to the brink of war three times in the last half century. Recent tension has centered on energy exploration rights in the eastern Mediterranean, and on the presence of Greek troops on eastern Aegean islands near the Turkish coast. Turkey maintains that a military presence on the islands is a direct threat and banned by international treaties.
Greece counters that the treaties allow for a limited military presence, and notes that Turkey maintains a sizeable troop presence on the Turkish mainland opposite the Greek islands. I ask, does anybody reasonably believe that the Greek islands are a threat to the Turkish mainland, or is it more realistic to believe that the Turkish mainland is a threat to the Greek islands? He noted that Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974 and the island has remained ethnically split ever since, with only Turkey recognizing a breakaway Turkish Cypriot state in the northern third of the island. The Turkish invasion followed a coup aimed at the island’s union with Greece. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and visiting Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu meet in Washington. The United States and Turkey looked to brush aside differences that have strained relations for years but were unable to report progress in resolving disagreements over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and NATO expansion that have soured ties between the allies. At a meeting in Washington on Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and visiting Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu sought to bridge those gaps, but there was no immediate sign that they had, even though both men lauded the partnership between their countries.
They played up cooperation on Ukraine, with Blinken in particular praising Turkey’s leadership in brokering the deal with Russia to resume grain exports. Turkey is demanding that the Swedes do more to rein in Kurdish groups that Ankara sees as a threat to its security before approving the alliance’s expansion. That doesn’t mean we don’t have differences, but when we have differences, precisely because we are allies and partners, we work through them in that spirit. Cavusoglu made no mention of Finland and Sweden in his comments, but did make a point of stressing the importance Turkey places on winning US approval to buy advanced F-16 fighters, something the Biden administration supports but that faces significant congressional opposition.
As we have said before, this is not only about Turkey but also for NATO and the United States as well. So we expect approval in line with our joint strategic interest. Cavusoglu’s visit is a rare one to Washington by a top Turkish official as President Joe Biden’s administration has kept its distance from Ankara because of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian direction and policies curbing rights and freedoms. And, as Blinken pointed out, Turkey was key to the agreement between Russia and Ukraine that allowed millions of tons of Ukrainian grain to be transported to world markets, averting a food crisis during the war. NATO allies, however, frequently find themselves at odds over a number of issues, with the biggest disputes centering on Turkey’s purchase of Russian-made missiles and support for Kurdish militants in Syria.
