Turkey Escalating Aggression against Greece: 90 Overflights in One Day
by Uzay Bulut • April 27, 2022 at 5:00 am
Turkish military aircraft violated Greek airspace 90 times in one day, on April 15, and conducted three overflights of inhabited Greek islands, according to Greek media.
Turkish aircraft have, in fact, been violating Greek airspace almost non-stop since the beginning of the year. In fact, Turkey -- both its government and political opposition -- has for years openly been threatening to capture Greek islands in the Aegean Sea.... Russia's invasion of Ukraine seems to offer a convenient precedent for Turkey to increase its military aggression against Greece.
"Once again we wish to reiterate that sovereignty over the islands, islets and rocks of the Aegean was ceded to Greece definitively and unconditionally by the above Treaties and any interpretation against the letter or spirit of these fundamental Treaties would amount to an unauthorized attempt to unilaterally review and modify them." — Greece's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Maria Theofili.
The legal status of the Greek islands in the Aegean is clear: The Treaty of Lausanne set the borders of Turkey and Greece, with the exception of the then-Italian occupied Dodecanese islands that reunited with Greece in 1947 following the signing of the Paris Peace Treaty between Italy and the World War II Allies.
Greek sovereignty over those islands is stipulated by international conventions: The 1923 Lausanne Treaty, the 1936 Montreux Treaty, and the 1947 Paris Treaty.
Sadly, Turkey appears to have an expansionist agenda that has a centuries-long history and that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has articulated.
Greece does not have such an agenda. Greece has not been busy invading or threatening its neighbors or other nations in the Middle East.
Turkey, however, invaded northern Cyprus in 1974, forcibly displaced the Greek Christians living there, and has been maneuvering to acquire the rest. In 2018, Turkey also invaded northern Syria and, using jihadist paramilitary forces, has been occupying the region ever since.
While the world has been distracted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Turkey, a member of the NATO alliance, has been busy harassing another NATO member, its Western neighbor, Greece.
Turkish military aircraft violated Greek airspace 90 times in one day, on April 15, and conducted three overflights of inhabited Greek islands, according to Greek media.
Turkish aircraft have, in fact, been violating Greek airspace almost non-stop since the beginning of the year.
According to Greece's National Defense General Staff, Turkey violated Greek airspace every single day from April 11-13. Its F-16 fighter jets flew above the Greek islands of Panagia, Oinousses, and Farmakonisi. "The Turkish jets were identified and intercepted by Greek fighter jets as laid out by international law and practice," the newspaper Kathimerini reported.
