From 2014 to 2018, 3 presidential elections, 4 parliamentary elections and 1 referendum were held in Turkey, in which the winner was President Erdoğan, who had already ruled the country since 2002. During the period from 2018 until today, it was perhaps the first time in many years that Turkey did not have any electoral process.
And yet, during this time, Turkey proceeded with the conception and implementation of the Turko-Libyan Memorandum, established the Doctrine of the “Blue Homeland”, proceeded unilaterally and arbitrarily to delineate the external boundaries of what it considers its own Ice Shelf in the Eastern Mediterranean and finally formed the last extreme claim against Greece by linking the continuation of Greek sovereignty over the Aegean islands with the demand for their disarmament.
All this was obviously not done for pre-election purposes or to meet T. Erdogan’s communication needs and for internal consumption. Turkish expansionism and revisionism serve to cultivate the nationalist mindset that every Turkish leader needs, but it is not the result, but the cause, of Turkey’s Islamic-nationalist turn and the effort to make it an “independent” regional power.
Unfortunately, over time all the political leaderships of Greece succumb to the temptation to attribute both the aggressive rhetoric and the aggressive actions of Turkey to the need to win the “domestic audience”, to stimulate the nationalist instinct of the voters and to rally them in view of the current elections.
This is always a convenient and easy view of Turkey, which does not impose immediate reactions and long-term strategy planning and sometimes justifies stoicism in the face of Turkish aggression.
Also, as happened at the NATO Summit, Erdogan’s bargain, which apparently did not yield what he sought, but gave him what he could get, gave Greece the opportunity for a completely misleading confrontation. The opposition criticizing Erdogan’s “gains” trapped the government into apologizing for the concessions made by the Swedes and Finns and the appointment and promises offered by President Biden. As if any Greek government could come forward and veto everything, demanding that Sweden and Finland withdraw their commitments and that President Biden declare that he is fully complying with the orders of Athens so that T. Erdogan leave empty handed. With this trap, however, the government agents found themselves in the unpleasant role of, instead of making a realistic impression of the presence of the Turkish president in NATO, trying to downplay not only the presence of T. Erdogan in Madrid, but also the essence and depth of it threat against Greece.
Even if T. Erdoğan also appeals to internal public opinion, with his statements that for months have been heard almost every day as “Declarations of War” against Greece, it does not mean that as soon as he sees the opinion polls he will raise his percentages or even if he wins the next crucial election, all of that will disappear in one fell swoop.
The simple search of how the theory of the “grey zones” and the “Blue Homeland” was built from 1974 onwards could convince even the most skeptical, that every theory every question raised against the country in pre-election or non-election period, remains and the next president, the next Turkish prime minister builds on it.
For this reason, the aggressive Turkish policy should not be underestimated so lightly, and much more this argumentation should be used which ultimately leads to complacency and rest…
It is also a serious mistake to attribute T. Erdogan’s aggressive rhetoric to communication reasons, as this weakens Greece’s attempt to convince the international community that it faces a dangerous revisionism and not just a politician who, in order to charm his voters, says and some more talk about Greece. The government, which shows with the armaments program it has launched that it understands the Turkish threat, should not send contradictory messages.
As much as we want to avoid the harsh reality of the Greek-Turkish people, it will come back as a bad nightmare.
Turkey is a systemic threat to our country and the movements, the statements, the reports, should be treated in this light.
Otherwise we would only have to be patient, cancel the armaments and wait for the Turkish people to rid us of Erdogan.
