For the first time in Turkey a foreign diplomat and thus the Greek Foreign Minister did not mince his words and told Ankara what its neighbor think of a series of illegal actions and claims. The joint statements of guest Greek FM Nikos Dendias and host Turkish FM Mevlut Cavusoglu transmitted live on TV turned into a bras-de-fer aside all diplomatic protocol, the vague and empty commitments, the pleasantry and the usual niceness.
What began with hopes of improved relations quickly descended into acrimonious accusations from both sides.
Dendias challenged live Cavusoglu by practically referring to all the bilateral differences by name: All the Turkish actions inclduing the air space violations in the area that are illegal, there is not Turkish but Muslim minority in Thrace according to the Treaty of Lasusanne, the Treaty cannot be revoked and demilitarization of the Greek islands cannot take place if Turkey had its army at the coast.
Greece repeated over the weekend a call to Germany to suspend the export of military equipment to Turkey over Ankara’s aggressive policies in the Eastern Mediterranean.
In an article in Die Welt newspaper, Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias urged Germany to halt the sale of submarines to Turkey, saying that the move would upset the existing power balance and enable Ankara to destabilize the Eastern Mediterranean.
Dendias said that the Type 214 class German submarines – the Hellenic Navy currently has four such vessels – “give us a strategic advantage in the Southeast Mediterranean and the Aegean.”
“If Germany delivers [these vessels], Turkey will again have an advantage against Greece,” he said.
Ankara has ordered six Type 214 submarines.
In October, Berlin dismissed Greece’s calls for an arms embargo to Turkey. The Foreign Ministry said that the federal government follows “a restrictive and responsible weapons exports policy.”
It added that licenses for exports of arms to Turkey is “very low,” and are granted “after careful consideration and through the prism of foreign and security policy parameters.”
Athens submitted a demarche, a protest note, to Ankara over “the issue at a point of southern Evros the occasion of the change of the riverbed” diplomatic sources told media on Friday evening, without mentioning what exactly “the issue” at the land border between the two countries was.
“The issue” in question has been that a group of Turkish soldiers marched and occupied a small piece of land, some 1. hectares, on the east bank of the Evros River in Melissokomeio, near the village of Ferres.
According to local media, the Turkish presence are 15 men, five members of the military police and ten from the army. And this happened two weeks ago.
They set up a tent, hanged a small Turkish flag on a tree and change shifts.
They have rejected Greek demands to leave the area.
According to armyvoice that exclusively reported about “the issue” on Thursday, the Turkish side has persistently refused to present the information it invokes when it claims that it is Turkish territory and has ruled out any discussion on the issue.”
At the end of the “issue”, Turkish soldiers remain on a part of land that belongs to Greece, also on Friday.
Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias did not mention the word “occupation” when he spoke about ‘the issue.” He said instead that he was not about to create tension for “a few dozens meters” of land.
” I don’t like to create tension between two countries that are allies. There could be measurements and a joint committee to solve such issues. We speak of a few dozens of meters,
I hope we reach an understanding. There is a matter of a dispute of the exact border, due to changes in the river’s banks. […]. I don’t like to create tensions between the two countries, which are allies. […] The appropriate measurements can be made and these things can be resolved in a joint committee. We’re talking about a few dozen meters,” Dendias told state broadcaster ERA FM on May 20.
Greece seems to avoid tension on “the issue” due to the sensitive aspects of the matter and to avoid creating the impression that it is discussing issues that suggest possible border disputes with Ankara.
Despite the tensions between the two countries, the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias expressed their condolences to the Turkish people and offered any assistance to the earthquake-stricken neighboring country that counts so far 14 dead, more than 300 injured and many people still under the debris.
In a phone conversation with his counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu, FM Nikos Dendias offered every possible help to the neighboring country.
Greece has often sent search and rescue teams to Turkey when needed, the first time it was in the big earthquake in August 1999.
It’s official: In the snap general election held in Greece on Sunday, the notorious neo-Nazi thugs of Golden Dawn failed to pass the 3 percent electoral threshold and crashed out of parliament after seven turbulent years. At the same time, the conservative New Democracy party led by Kyriakos Mitsotakis comfortably won an outright majority and formed a new government, pushing the left-wing Syriza party of outgoing Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras into the opposition.
Now see if you can guess where most of those who abandoned Golden Dawn have found a welcoming political home.
It has been common knowledge for several years that the road that would bring New Democracy back to power would pass through Golden Dawn and the far-right party’s declining popularity.
The reason was obvious: Golden Dawn’s shocking 7 percent of the vote in four national elections between 2012 and 2015 did not come from aliens who had suddenly landed in Greece. Most came from voters who previously backed New Democracy, which had traditionally been a safe harbor for both far-right politicians and voters since the civil war that tormented the country following World War II — and also after the seven-year military regime ended in 1974.
In order to win back Golden Dawn voters, New Democracy had to pursue a double-edged strategy: First, reaching out to far-right voters by addressing their traditional concerns — public order, a strict immigration policy, a welfare system for “genuine Greeks” only, conventionality and patriotism (if not outright nationalism). And second, to stand in opposition to Syriza’s left-wing policies toward migrants, the LGBTQ community, marginalized citizens and minorities, and also its recent decision to reach an agreement with neighboring North Macedonia, ending a 30-year dispute about its constitutional name (it was formerly Macedonia).
In both cases, you need a few loud politicians who will inspire the far-right voters — and New Democracy was never lacking in that regard.
After the Greek Civil War ended in 1949, many Nazi collaborators had sought refuge in the ruling conservative National Radical Union party (aka ERE) founded by Konstantinos Karamanlis. Then at the end of the ’50s came the Max Merten scandal, when the Nazi commander of Thessaloniki (aka Salonika), who was responsible for the transfer of some 45,000 Jews to death camps, was given an amnesty by then-Prime Minister Karamanlis following a controversial trial in which he was sentenced to 25 years’ hard labor.
After the “Rule of the Colonels” ended in 1974 and with political parties no longer outlawed, the National Radical Union morphed into New Democracy, under the same leadership, and played the exact same role as before — but this time for the “orphans” of the military junta: It provided them with a safe and comfortable shelter.
Throughout the 1970s and ’80s, and right up until the start of the Greek financial crisis a decade ago, New Democracy’s far-right lawmakers always maintained a rather modest presence. They had a low-key public stance, walked hand-in-hand with the Greek Orthodox Church, whispering their thoughts and ideas to political supporters, and engaging in cronyism (or as the Greeks call it “rousfeti” — the long-standing Ottoman term meaning “political favors”).
Their characteristics were the same as ever: Pro-monarchy, old junta sympathizers, nationalist, anti-left and anti-Semitic. Still, since such ideas were completely out of fashion until the dawn of the new millennium, they were just a small, silent current flowing within New Democracy — far from the then-leadership that was strategically oriented toward the center-right.
‘Three musketeers’
The first public figure to prominently address far-right issues in the 1990s and 2000s was the charismatic populist Archbishop Christodoulos. Along with a few prominent clerics in the Orthodox hierarchy, he voiced clearly anti-Semitic, nationalistic and xenophobic sentiments in his sermons and in the media. This proved a seamless way to bring extremist ideas back into mainstream politics, as the late Christodoulos (he died in 2008) had a fairly lengthy list of friends and supporters in New Democracy and was also extremely popular among the party’s base.
The result, in 2000, was the formation of the populist Popular Orthodox Rally (aka LAOS), led by a well-known anti-Semite and former lawmaker in the New Democracy party called Georgios Karatzaferis,. It was through his party — which gained its first seats in the Greek parliament in 2007 — that the Greek public heard for the first time the names Makis Voridis, Adonis Georgiadis and Thanos Plevris.
Considered the Popular Orthodox Rally’s “three musketeers,” all three had inglorious pasts: Voridis reportedly formed a fascist student group in the 1980s whose members allegedly greeted each other with Hitler salutes, and then led the youth wing of a far-right political party established by the former head of the junta; Georgiadis went on television to promote nationalistic books, including one called “Jews: The Whole Truth,” a collection of conspiracy theories written in a pseudo-scientific manner by the most notorious Greek anti-Semite and Holocaust denier Prof. Konstantinos Plevris — who just happened to be the father of Thanos Plevris.
In 2011, all hell broke loose in the Greek economy following the government debt crisis. As the second-largest party, New Democracy — along with the ruling Panhellenic Socialist Movement — was widely held accountable for the country’s collapse and bankruptcy. The Popular Orthodox Rally saw an opportunity and jumped at the chance to back a unity government of technocrats in order to “save the country.” A year later, though, the Popular Orthodox Rally also collapsed due to the government’s austerity measures, crashing out of the parliament.
It was during this 2012 election that Golden Dawn emerged as the far right’s new political force. Many Popular Orthodox Rally voters moved en bloc to Golden Dawn, along with angry far-right voters who had previously supported New Democracy — making the neo-Nazis Greece’s third-largest party.
Yet Voridis, Georgiadis and Thanos Plevris headed in the opposite decision: Rather than enlist with Golden Dawn, they joined New Democracy under the stewardship of Antonis Samaras, who promptly hailed them as his “new talents.”
Voridis and Georgiadis were appointed ministers in Samaras’ government between 2012-2015 (Voridis succeeded Georgiadis as health minister), almost as if they were being rewarded for their ultranationalist background and fiery political presence.
Their popularity rose within the party and after Mitsotakis — who is from one of the country’s best-known political dynasties — became New Democracy’s leader following its poor showing in the September 2015 election, he immediately named Georgiadis the party’s new vice president. Voridis, meanwhile, became the party’s parliamentary spokesman.
This sent a very strong and clear message for far-right voters to “return home” — especially with various Golden Dawn leaders on trial and facing jail sentences if they are found guilty of murdering an anti-fascist rapper in 2013 and for dozens of violent attacks.
What came next was pretty predictable: A host of conservative politicians started feeling more comfortable projecting their far-right political agenda within New Democracy. These include Angelos Syrigos, a member of the nationalist think tank Network 21, who once said that “refugees are dreaming of bringing the Arab Spring to Greece”; former TV presenter Constantinos Bogdanos, who just said “the amount of votes” he took “means that some ‘patriots’ voted for us instead of Golden Dawn”; Konstantinos Kyranakis, who stated that “subsidies for parents should be given only to children that are born of Greek parents”; former basketball star Vassilis Kikilias, who has equated Syriza with terrorism, and many others at all levels of the party.
This was exactly what Mitsotakis needed to win voters back from Golden Dawn and return to power. The result is that many populist politicians were elected on New Democracy’s slate; Georgiadis was appointed development and investments minister; and Voridis is the new agriculture minister. Thanos Plevris remains a parliamentarian.
In the meantime, another far-right populist party, Greek Solution, has just made it into the parliament, led by Kyriakos Velopoulos — another prominent figure from the Popular Orthodox Rally and former comrade of the “three musketeers.” His party’s policies include building a 200-kilometer (125-mile) wall along the Turkish border to keep migrants out, and getting rid of overseas nongovernmental organizations.
If you were to ask those “musketeers” today about their anti-Semitic or hard-core nationalistic past, they would all no doubt deny it. Georgiadis recently joined a protest at a Jewish cemetery in Athens after it was vandalized, where he and apologized for his promotion of the Holocaust-denying book, calling it his biggest mistake. Furthermore, he appears to have become a fan of Benjamin Netanyahu, retweeting Haaretz’s May 2018 story about an infamous “Fuck Turkey” Instagram post by the prime minister’s son, Yair Netanyahu. Quite awkward, but not completely unprecedented.
Is his seeming reversal sincere? Maybe he really has decided to change his mind-set? Well, it may have sounded more honest and acceptable if he had also renounced racism, xenophobia and his far-right agenda, which still remains identical to the days of yore — and not just the anti-Semitism. Otherwise, it might be taken as just another strategic maneuver in the dark of far-right politics.
Dendias'tan Türkiye'ye NAVTEX Cevabı İlişkileri Nasıl Etkileyecek?
Yunan Savunma Bakanı Nikos Dendias, Cuma günü Alpha Radyosu’na verdiği demeçte, Türkiye’nin süresiz NAVTEX ilanının Yunanistan tarafından ciddiye alınamayacağını vurguladı. Dendias, bu durumun komşu ülke tarafından da çok iyi bilindiğini belirtti. Yapılan bu açıklamalar, Türkiye’nin Yunanistan ile ilişkilerine zarar veren bir eylem olarak değerlendirildi. Yunanistan’ın, Türkiye tarafından ilan…
Dendias'tan Türkiye'ye NAVTEX Cevabı İlişkileri Nasıl Etkileyecek?
Yunan Savunma Bakanı Nikos Dendias, Cuma günü Alpha Radyosu’na verdiği demeçte, Türkiye’nin süresiz NAVTEX ilanının Yunanistan tarafından ciddiye alınamayacağını vurguladı. Dendias, bu durumun komşu ülke tarafından da çok iyi bilindiğini belirtti. Yapılan bu açıklamalar, Türkiye’nin Yunanistan ile ilişkilerine zarar veren bir eylem olarak değerlendirildi. Yunanistan’ın, Türkiye tarafından ilan…
Ντοκουμέντα καταγράφουν τη συμμετοχή του κοινοβουλευτικού εκπροσώπου της ΝΔ Νίκου Δένδια σε offshore εταιρείες με την ιδιότητα του νομικού ε
02.06.16
Ντοκουμέντα καταγράφουν τη συμμετοχή του κοινοβουλευτικού εκπροσώπου της ΝΔ Νίκου Δένδια σε offshore εταιρείες με την ιδιότητα του νομικού εκπροσώπου, εγείροντας μείζον πολιτικό και ηθικό θέμα που έρχεται ακριβώς τη στιγμή που έχει σηκωθεί η σκόνη από τη διάταξη σκάνδαλο για τις offshore των πολιτικών.
