THE MIRACLE
A True Story |
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prime minister of Turkey, Bulent Ecevit, declared in a speech
that the oil explorations had been merely a front: the real
purpose of the expedition had been to redefine the borders
with Greece!
In June, 1974 Turkish officials issued wordy statements in
which they made no attempt to disguise their intentions
regarding the new borders that Turkey sought to impose.
On 1st June, 1974, Hasan Isik announced that Turkey would
never allow the Aegean to be turned into a Greek sea - as
if the Aegean had not always been a Greek sea, from the
dawn of history right up to the present day.
On 4th June, 1974 the then Turkish foreign minister, Turhan
Günes, declared that Turkey would never agree to the
extension of Greece's territorial waters in the Aegean to
twelve nautical miles. This is a position which Turkey has
reiterated time and again, at every opportunity, even after
the international treaty on the Law of the Sea came into
effect on 10th December, 1982, with 72 countries around
the world signatory to the agreement.
According to the terms of the treaty, Greece is entitled to
extend its territorial waters to 12 nautical miles; yet Turkey
persists in threatening that if Greece implements the
international treaty it has signed, this will be considered as
a cause for war between the two sides!
In order that there should be no doubt as to its intentions,
the Turkish parliament passed a resolution granting the Turkish
government power to declare war on Greece if it exercised
its sovereign rights and extended its territorial waters from
six to twelve miles!
Turkey judged that Greece's weak position in 1974
presented the ideal conditions for seizing as much as it
could. From then on, Turkish aggression knew no bounds.
On 18th July, 1974, a new law was published in Turkey,
again giving the Turkish State Petroleum Company non-existent
rights of exploration in Greek regions, this time in
the south-east Aegean. Two days later, Turkey invaded Cyprus
and with the tolerance of the West forcibly occupied 40% of the island.
Two weeks after the invasion of Cyprus, the Turkish
government published NOTAM 714, in which it demanded
that all aircraft flying over half of the Aegean should report
to Turkey. This was an attempt to abolish the existing system
of Flight Information Regions (FIR), under which, in accordance
with the Paris Agreement of 1952 and the Geneva Agreement
of 1958, the whole of the Aegean comes under the Athens
FIR. Greece's reaction on 14th August, 1974, in declaring
the entire Aegean a danger region eventually forced Turkey,
six years later, to revoke NOTAM 714 on 22nd February,
1980.
On 18th January, 1975 the then Turkish prime minister,
Sadi Irmak, spoke quite openly about Turkey's expansionist
intentions: "The Aegean Sea belongs to us and everyone
should realise this!" Four days later, on 22nd January, the
same official went on to clarify the way in which Turkey
intended to enforce this position: "We are obliged," he said,
"to adopt a dynamic policy in the Aegean. Conditions today
are different from those of 1923. Turkey's power has grown.
Cyprus is the first step towards the Aegean!"
A year and a half later, on 7th August, 1976 the Turkish
ship Hora sailed into the Aegean to continue the task of
"claiming fresh borders" with Greece. Greece sought recourse
at the International Court of Justice at The Hague, but Turkey
flatly rejected any idea of mediation.
In December, 1995 the then Greek prime minister, Andreas
Papandreou, became seriously ill and unable to carry on
ruling the country; he was admitted to the Onassis Heart
Centre in Athens. The ensuing power vacuum in Greece
provided Turkey with a fresh opportunity for aggression. A
Turkish sailing-boat apparently "went aground" on the rocky
Greek islets of Imia, but when Greek vessels sped to their
assistance, the Turkish agents on board the boat refused to
accept help, saying the rocky islet was Turkish and that
they would accept help only from Turkish vessels. (The
same scenario had been described with remarkable accuracy
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