Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recently said: “We warn those who have crossed the line in the Aegean and Cyprus… Their courage persists only until they see our army, our ships and our planes.” (Photo by Elif Sogut/Getty Images)
by Uzay Bulut,
- Turkey’s ruling party, and even much of the opposition, seem intent on, if not obsessed with, invading and conquering these Greek islands, on the grounds that they are actually Turkish territory.
- “The things we have done so far [pale in comparison to the] even greater attempts and attacks [we are planning for] the coming days, inshallah [Allah willing].” – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, February 12, 2018.
- The head of the state-funded Directorate of Religious Affairs, the Diyanet, has openly described Turkey’s recent military invasion of Afrin as “jihad.” This designation makes sense when one considers that Muslim Turks owe their demographic majority in Asia Minor to centuries of Turkish persecution and discrimination against the Christian, Yazidi and Jewish inhabitants of the area.
In an incident that took place less than two weeks after the Greek Defense Ministry announced that Turkey had violated Greek airspace 138 times in a single day, a Turkish coast guard patrol boat on February 13 rammed a Greek coast guard vessel off the shore of Imia, one of many Greek islands over which Turkey claims sovereignty.
Most of the areas within modern Greece’s current borders were under the occupation of the Ottoman Empire from the mid-15th century until the Greek War of Independence in 1821 and the establishment of the modern Greek state in 1832. The islands, however, like the rest of Greece, are legally and historically Greek, as their names indicate.
Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), however, and even much of the opposition seem intent on, if not obsessed with, invading and conquering these Greek islands, on the grounds that they are actually Turkish territory.
In December, for instance, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of the main Turkish opposition CHP party, stated that when he wins the election in 2019, he will “invade and take over 18 Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, just as former Turkish PM Bulent Ecevit invaded Cyprus in 1974.” He said that there is “no document” proving that those islands belong to Greece.
Meral Akşener, the head of the newly established opposition “Good Party,” has also called for an invasion and conquest of the islands. “What is required must be done,” she tweeted on January 13.
The most garish muscle-flexing has come from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, of course, who seems emboldened by his military invasion of the Afrin region in northern Syria having gone virtually unchallenged.
“We warn those who have crossed the line in the Aegean and Cyprus,” Erdoğan declared, continuing:
“Their courage persists only until they see our army, our ships and our planes… Whatever Afrin is to us, our rights in the Aegean and Cyprus are the same. Do not ever think that the natural gas exploration in the waters of Cyprus and the opportunistic attempts in the Aegean Sea drop off our radar.
“Just as we disrupt the plots [in the region] through Operation Euphrates Shield and Operation Olive Branch [on Syria], and soon in Manbij and other regions, we can and we will disrupt the plots of those who engage in miscalculations on our southern border… Our warships and air forces are keeping an eye on the area closely to intervene in every way when required.”
Referring to the days of the Ottoman Empire, Erdoğan went on:
“Those who think that we have erased from our hearts the lands from which we withdrew in tears a hundred years ago are wrong.
“We say at every opportunity we have that Syria, Iraq and other places in the geography [map] in our hearts are no different from our own homeland. We are struggling so that a foreign flag will not be waved anywhere where adhan [Islamic call to prayer in mosques] is recited.
“The things we have done so far [pale in comparison to the] even greater attempts and attacks [we are planning for] the coming days, inshallah [Allah willing].”
The Ottoman dynasty and empire was established by a nomadic Turkmen chief sometime around the year 1300. During the more than 600 years of the Ottoman period, the Ottoman Turks, who also represented the Islamic Caliphate, regularly launched wars of jihad, invading and occupying lands across five continents.
Neo-Ottomanists in Turkey still proudly embrace the concept of jihad (Islamic holy war) against the kafirs (infidels). The head of the state-funded Directorate of Religious Affairs, the Diyanet, has openly described Turkey’s recent military invasion of Afrin as “jihad.”
This designation makes sense when one considers that Muslim Turks owe their demographic majority in Asia Minor to centuries of Turkish Muslim persecution and discrimination against the Christian, Yazidi and Jewish inhabitants of the area. In the 11th century, Turkic jihadists from Central Asia invaded and conquered the Greek-speaking, Christian Byzantine Empire, paving the way for the gradual Turkification and Islamization of the region through methods such as murder, kidnapping, rape and forced conversions.
The greatest 20th century Turkish assault against Christians took place in the 1914-1923 genocide of Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians (Syriacs/Chaldeans) in Ottoman Turkey. This did not prevent Turkey, which continues to deny the genocide, from becoming a member of NATO in 1952. The assault also did not stop Turkey, three years after joining NATO, from committing a savage anti-Greek pogrom in Istanbul or from forcibly expelling the remaining Greeks from Turkey in 1964.
It is precisely because the Turks have never been held accountable for their criminal actions and aggression that they continue to threaten the security and sovereignty of their neighbors. It is high time for the West wake up and take Ankara to task.
Uzay Bulut is a Turkish journalist born and raised in Turkey. She is presently based in Washington D.C.
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that Ankara would close its border with northern Iraq over an independence referendum and threatened the Iraqi Kurds with blocking their key oil exports.
Turkish forces in Syria will attack the Kurdish-held town of Manbij after taking the town of al-Bab from Islamic State, the Turkish president has said. He added that Turkey would not allow the Kurds to hold an area west of Mosul, Iraq.
NewsWire.com
April 4 2016
Turkey Threatens Armenia With “Another Armenian Genocide”
Posted on April 4, 2016 by Sean Adl-Tabatabai
Turkey are to begin military operations against the Republic of
Armenia – just a century after they attempted to wipe the country off
the face of the earth in the brutal killing of 1.5 million of its
citizens in what is known today as the Armenian Genocide.
According to Russian intelligence sources Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan has voiced concerns that the 3 million population
nation of Armenia has become the “greatest threat to world peace”, and
has vowed to “do something about it”.
Whatdoesitmean.com reports:
Once gaining their own nation, however, this report notes, Armenia was
forced to come to the aid of the Christian Armenian’s living in the
Nagorno-Karabakh region of the Islamic Republic of Azerbaijan—who had
vowed, since 1988, to eliminate Christianity from their borders
altogether, and which led to the Nagorno-Karabakh War that ended in
1994 with a death toll over 30,000 and the displacement of nearly 1
million more.
Though this war has remained a “frozen conflict” for the past 22
years, MoD experts in this report say, this past week it became “hot”
when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan traveled to his $100
million American palace outside of Washington D.C. to meet with his
paid Mercury LLC lobbyists—who then immediately began warning US
politicians that the 3 million populated Christian nation of Armenia
had now became the greatest threat to world peace known in our times.
Within hours of Erdogan’s US lobbyists from Mercury LLC giving such an
outlandish and absurd warning, this report continues, Turkish backed
Azerbaijan launched a “massive attack” with tanks, artillery and
helicopters against the Armenian protected Christians in the
Nagorno-Karabakh region with their Russian Ambassador, Polad
Bulbuloglu, stating “The attempts of a peaceful solution to this
conflict have been underway for 22 years. How much more will it take?
We are ready for a peaceful solution to the issue. But if it’s not
solved peacefully then we will solve it by military means”—a statement
fully backed by Erdoğan too.
With Turkey being the key supplier of weapons and military hardware to
the Islamic State terrorists for the genocide of Christians in Iraq
and Syria, the MoD says in this report, Armenia’s President Serzh
Sargsian ordered his foreign ministry to “draft a treaty on mutual
military assistance with Nagorno-Karabakh” to protect these Christians
from “Erdoğan’s wrath” lest these Christians suffer the same fate.
Vice speaker of Russia’s State Duma (lower house of parliament) Sergei
Zheleznyak further warned that Turkey was the “third force” behind the
war developments in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, this report
continues, describing them as a provocation—which back in February,
NATO stated it was growing “nervous” about should Erdoğan’s
provocations against Christians erupt into a full scale war with
Russia.
NATO’s fears are, indeed, justified, this report notes, (and as we had
previously reported on) after President Putin, this past November
(2015), ordered thousands of additional Federation military forces to
Armenia should Erdoğan attempt the war moves he has begun this past
week against the Christian Armenian peoples living in
Nagorno-Karabakh.
And as to exactly why Erdoğan, and his son Bilal who funds ISIS, are
intent on igniting a war in Nagorno-Karabakh, this report concludes,
is due to the ongoing talks between Russia and the Obama regime to
coordinate their attack on the Turkish supported Islamic State capital
of Raqqa (in northern Syria) which the US is preparing for a massive
increase of Special Forces troops to conduct—and if successful, would
destroy Turkey’s dream of Middle East dominance and cost them millions
of dollars.
Sorce: 
