This is the second time I decided to publish an exchange of posts between Sakan Gurkaynak, a Turkish friend and myself, friends in Facebook, regarding different points of view between Turks and Greeks on current conflicting issues.
I don’t pretend I am a specialists on Turkish Greek relationships so one could consider my responses as the view of an average Greek person.
Whatever the opinion of a person may be, I believe it is interesting to observe how each party looks at current situation between our two countries.
It is important and constructive to understand the thinking of Turkish persons especially this period that Turkey appears to be driven further away from EU principles as well as develop conflicts with its major ally in NATO, USA.
The conflicts with Greece are due to medium to long term historical reasons that Greece had hoped will be reduced with an approach between Turkey and West, but it appears that things are pulling appart the other way, a fact that leaves Greece exposed to great dangers in view of internal political changes that are happening in Turkey as well as the expressed desire of Turkey to play a stronger role as a regional power in support of its geopolitical interests in the wider area both in Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea. This inevitably involves Greece and Cyprus as well as and most importantly, further East, with α possible creation of a Curdist state in the Turkish frontiers.
An exchange of posts follows:
Sukan Gurkaynak what in your opinion is wrong with Tsipras. a neutral question, I just want to understand your viewpoint.
Tsipras is a young politician who managed to be ellected on the basis of promises that a totaly disapointed electorate believed but he did not deliver. Greece has gone through a very dificult recession that reduced income to most midle class Greeks , reduced pensions to the elderly by 50%. To ratify the situation the Greek Goverment should have reduced the size of the public sector, inprove it’s performance as well as encourage foreign invetment. Thipras increased taxation to private sector and individuals to a degree that approaches taxation to 70% on profits, instead of reducing expenses in the public sector. Tsipras appeared as a radical leftish against austerity masures that EU and IMF were requesting but eventually implemented all instructions imposed by EU and IMF in a way that did not allow development, maintaining an imposible status for private companies to develop. This was also against advises given by EU and IMF who were interested to collect their money one or other way. So people in Greece are considering him as a big opportunist that follows any line just to remain in power for an other year. He currently maintains a 20% control of the public vote but takes decisions over and above the will of the Greek Public which has shifted against him. I have given a fuller view of conditions in an article which you may like to read under the following link: https://wordpress.com/post/timesforchange.wordpress.com/2279
Nick Kouzos This is how US and EU are looking upon Tsipras who has turned to a «good boy» for them https://www.independent.co.uk/…/alexis-tsipras-eu…INDEPENDENT.CO.UK
Opinion: How Alexis Tsipras went from an anti-Brussels…
Sukan Gurkaynak Nick Kouzos The Turkish left loves Tsipras which is probably a good reason to distrust him. The German press wrote either other countries aliment Greece with no end or the Greeks will have to live to their means. My Cretan relatives say Greeks are wonderful people until their church or their demagogues incite them to fanaticism. What is your alternative?
Nick Kouzos The political alternative for Greece is the New Democracy party which is a moderate Center to right. This party leads in the forecast by 12%. This will probably be the next Greek Government.
Nick Kouzos Religion has always been contributing to fanaticism. The same happened with Christian Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox, but the same is happening with Islam.
Sukan Gurkaynak Nick Kouzos I also think New Democracy is more reasonable. But they still have the problem that they have to live to their means and no one outside Greece understand the Macedonia issue. Compare it with this: Eastern Anatolia has always been called Armenia. The Hay people who were late comers are allied by the name Armenians. This is not the case of a people giving their names to a land, but a land giving its name to the people. That creates the illusion that the hay people as they call themselves were the natives of East Anatolia and Turks had invaded their country. That is for Turkey a huge propaganda problem. Their language was made a language of culture by Greeks translating the bible into the language, which is well documented and contains a huge number of pre-Islamic Turkish words, indicating they were living together with Turks in East Anatolia long before Islam came. 60% have Turkish family names which they did not get from the Ottomans who had no family names. The Armenians themselves call their own country Hayastan. Imagine Turkey would now start fighting the idea that Armenia is called Armenia? Soem fights make no sense.
Nick Kouzos It is very difficult to understand and appreciate how Greek Macedonians feel about Macedonia. It is very difficult even impossible to convince Greek Macedonians that there is a Macedonian Nationality and a language Macedonian language which is basically a Bulgarian dialect influenced by Slavic-Serbian.
Sukan Gurkaynak Nick Kouzos I thought the Greek population of Macedonia were Anatolians who went there after the population exchange? If you look at a who is who of Ottoman/Turkish history of the last 150 years, you would see that the majority of political personalities are from Rumelia. The people who made the republic are from Macedonia. We can live with a Greek Macedonia. In the Balkans «Bulgarians» like Serbs constituted a dialect continuum. Depending on who conquered the Ottoman lands they became Bulgarians or Serbs and were made to learn official Bulgarian Slavonic or Serb Slavonic. Macedonian Slavonic is practically Bulgarian Slavonic.
Nick Kouzos I have already given you the population ratio of Greeks versus Bulgarians in Macedonia before 1821 and before the Balkan wars and the majority according to Ottoman books were Greeks. The difference has to do with Muslim populations. But Slavs and Bulgarians were a minority by far. There are still Greek minorities in Skopia, around 400.000. Some of them were communists who fled there after their defeat during the civil war in Greece, 1949, but even before that, the city of Monastir was almost totally Greek. The real objection is not the name, it is the issue of nationality and the language. The nationalities in Skopia are Slavs, Albanians, Bulgarians, Vlachs Pomaks and Greeks. I don’t know how many Muslim Turks are still there. I agree with your explanation regarding the language, it is Bulgarian Slavonic. So I don’t understand their insistence to claim a Macedonian nationality and Macedonian language especially when some Slav nationalists claim Greek Macedonia as their country. I could accept the term Slavonic Macedonians, with a minority of Albanians this is the true.
Sukan Gurkaynak Biggest group perhaps though it would surprise a majority improbable. I am still looking for my book. But the point is: in Ottoman times they all lived together, the proportion did not matter. Then came o bulgarophagos. A nationality is not a language, it is a political identity. The language in UK and US is identical. Germany and Austria. Turkey and Azerbaijan and a great part of Iran.
Nick Kouzos The nationality is not a language, we agree but there is no Macedonian Nationality. This was created by Tito on purpose, to invade Greece during the Communist era to get access to Aegean Sea. Whatever was happening during Ottoman times, we cannot recreate Ottoman Empire.
Sukan Gurkaynak Nick Kouzos Normal people do not want to recreate the Ottoman Empire. I just wanted you to remember, as you want us to remember. Outside Western Europe most nationalities are products of the 20th century. To be realistic, that includes Turks, defined as Ottoman Muslims and Greeks defined as Ottoman Greek Church members. A lot of people who are today Turks have ancestors who would have been amazed to think of themselves as Turks. Greek used to mean church and not nationality, that is why Cretan Muslims were excluded and the Karamanlis included when the Modern Greek nation was defined. Greeks should keep that in mind when they hate us Turks as Mongolian intruders, as a lot of them do.
Nick Kouzos I agree with your statement but you must also remember that Ottomans considered Greeks in certain areas as bandits and second class citizens. All this has happened in the middle of cultural and religious conflicts which effected developments both in West and East. I agree that intruders from Mongolia was only the beginning. Arab influence and Islam was also important. On the opposite side the west had the Dark Medieval period the Crusades and the Horrors of the Christian Church and Its Holy Inquisition. So it is natural and a historical fact that all these would have left serious wounds to the evolution of national states. Many people including Greek scholars would support the argument that Greeks would have been more well of, if they would join Ottomans to create an Empire under the name Middle Empire. This would have been possible if it was not for religious differences. The problem is that this has not happened for whatever reason, so we have to solve the conflicts with current status quo. There is not current hatred that cannot be handled under the influence of wiser politicians that should not act under the influence of populism.
Sukan Gurkaynak Nick Kouzos Actually the Turks who came to Anatolia in 1071 had nothing to do with Mongolia. They were Turkmens from Iran. You can see this on the fact that Turkmens (the word means I am a Turk) still live in Iran and Turkey as well as Afghanistan Iraq and Syria. The language is as close to Turkish in Turkey as English and Americans. Anatolia was being fought over by Greeks and Iran since ancient times and this was one more Iranian invasion. Even today around of a third of Iran speaks Turkish (Turkmen, Azeri, Qashghai). There is a theory that this was also so in ancient times. Also by the time the Turkmens came Turkish was alos spoken in Anatolia and Rumelia. This is how Turkey could be born. For a comparison: Turks also invaded India at the same time and left significant traces. But there are practically no Turks in India. The initial Greek nationalists did want to democratize the Ottoman Empire to French revolution ideology. The Greeks at that point were working with the Ottoman authorities. In 1868 all ethnicities of the empire were declared equal. The Greek Patriarch protested half in joke, until then the Greeks had been the second nation (millet) of the empire they had become one among many.
Nick Kouzos We are taking our discussion too deep in history but just to prove to you that I have done my research I am quoting directly from my site nickkouzos.com a special chapter about the roots of Turks which gives a full description http://nickkouzos.com/about/NICKKOUZOS.COM
The Origin Of Turks | Nick Kouzos
Nick Kouzos The fact is that there has been a long historic rivalry. There is no question that a certain section of Greeks in Fanari around the area the Greek Patiarch were contributing to a great degree to the administration of the state. But today there is a serious problem with Turkey as they have closed the Hieratical school of Halki that reduces the number of number of Priests that can become Patriarchs since they have to be of Turkish Nationality. This in effect reduces the level of the personality that will be the next Patriarch. This is very shuttle approach of indirect fight. There are a lot of issues we have to improve in order to avoid a next cultural clash in history between Greeks or may be better to call them Hellenes.
Sukan Gurkaynak Nick Kouzos I agree. The school issue is a retaliation to Greek government control of the Islamic institutions of West Thrace.
Sukan Gurkaynak Nick Kouzos I had previously read your article on the origin of the Turks. This is official history. Common words between maya and Turkish confirm the idea. However it is not the whole truth. Strabon writes that in his own time the same language was spoken all around the Black Sea. (I have not read the book yet) The only language spoken all around the Black sea is Turkish. So I think the West wrote the history and they liked the idea of us being Siberian barbarians. For strange reasons so do we. Turks do not do much research and what they do is concentrated on the Ottoman Empire perhaps also because the lands of Asia are controlled by Russians and Chinese who do not like the idea any more than Turks like Hellenic Anatolia. Turks say Sumer- the first civilization- was speaking a language which could be the antecedent of Turkish. The West hates the idea. They also want the Japanese to be an isolated people and hate the idea that Japanese could be related to Turkish. To find out, I spent time learning some Japanese. It is as closely related to Turkish as German to English. As for the modern Turkish nation, I think of us as being like Americans, not an ethnic unit but a political unit.
Nick Kouzos Sukan Gurkaynak Again we have a conflict regarding the priests (Mufties) in West Thrace. Turkey insists to impose Turkish nationals and not Muslims from other countries i.e Greece or Egypt. Turkish persons influence local Muslims against Greece and Greek Nationality. On the contrary a new Patriarch has to be of Turkish Nationality. You see you always support the Turkish point of view in every case. Even if the injustice is obvious. There is always a degree of bias to all of us but in most cases the Turks are more fanatic. One example is the case of the closing of school of Halki. Another example is the detainment of the two Greek soldiers. You keep double standards.
Sukan Gurkaynak Nick Kouzos According to my knowledge Greek government is imposing her people as Mufti. At least one elected Greek citizen Mufti they put in jail. Greece throws West Thracian Turks in jail for calling themselves Turks and takes their citizenship. Egyptians have no business in West Thrace. Even under military rule Turkey had laws and courtly. Thanks to the US and Erdogan this is no longer the case. The Americans jailed huge number of innocent generals using the Gulenists to bring Mr Erdogan a political-tactical advantage. CIA chief Petraeus was in Ankara and offered to release them if the military initiate a conflict with Iran. Then with EU support (including Greece) Erdogan made a referendum to bring the justice system under his control. Nowadays people go to jail if Mr Erdogan imagines a tactical advantage. Thank you EU, thank you Greece.
Nick Kouzos Sukan Gurkaynak There is no imprisonment of any person for calling himself Turk. Tis is misinformation. But in spite of this you are avoiding to respond directly on main points. Once again you accept the imprisonment of two Greek soldiers and the closing of the school of Halki. You also do not give a response regarding Mufties arising nationalistic climate in west Thrace. West Thrace Muslims are Greek citizens, they enjoy European citizenship as well. The Patriarch is a Turkish citizen and Turkey is effectively denying a succession process. We must for a change speak directly about these issues not avoiding direct answers. So why should Greeks allow Turkish Mufties to be appointed in West Thrace, who are acting against Greece, and at the same time deny the opening of the School of Halki? Do you support this action?
Sukan Gurkaynak Nick Kouzos I am little informed about what goes on in West Thrace and the Greek church in Istanbul. I wrote what I heard. Turks were complaining about the issues I wrote. I wrote that Mr Erdogan jails innocent people for tactical reasons. It was the West which created this situation. They wanted the Turkish military destroyed by jailing generals for no reason. They expected that Turkey would give land to Greeks, Kurds and Armenians once the military was out of the way. Now the military is out of the way and Mr Erdogan jails ever more people. I don’t like it. I think both Greece and Turkey need to reestablish real minority rights for the Greeks of Istanbul and the Turks of Thrace. If anybody ever asks me that is what I will say.
Nick Kouzos But there are no Greeks left in Istanbul, they are just 1.000, The Turkish Muslims in Thrace are protected by total freedom and equal rights both under Greek and EU law. They can even be members of parliament and in some cases they are. The problem rises only in cases when their leaders try to raise their expectations that Turkey will annex West Thrace. Even that is not used as an excuse to imprison anybody. On the contrary Turkey is stirring the situation by funding certain activities through the Turkish Consulate and some Mufties. As to the fact that The Americans are trying to use Greece again as it happened during the First World War, I believe that this is not possible this time. The problem is the other way around and it has to do with West Thrace, Aegean islands and Cyprus, The real problem and possible fighting accidents may start in case Turkey invades South Cyprus territorial waters instead of working out a solution is Cyprus for Turks and Greeks to coexist. The most dangerous argument is that Cyprus cannot be an independent nation unless Turkey decides so. This implies conflicts of interests between Cyprus and Turkey which involves conflicts between Russia and US as well as Europe. It is a matter of .oil and gas pipes. History repeats itself. Greece has been a victim ones on this game. I hope both Greece and Turkey will be wiser this time because both countries can be losers. I am supporting a multi ethnic solution for Cyprus that will create a safe place for both communities under EU equal rights environment, although I don’t believe that Turkey will allow this because it will effect Turkish aspirations in this area. So this a real danger.
Sukan Gurkaynak The starting position on Cyprus is, the 1960/61 treties are still valid. The Greeks decided to ignore them in 1963 and forced the Turks to live in ghettos. In 1974 the ghettos were enlarged to enable the Turks to lead normal lives.
Nick Kouzos inserted the photo:
Massive graves of missing Greek Cypriots descovered in Cyprus
Sukan Gurkaynak The treaties cannot be changed to make Cyprus sovereign without Turkey as the Lausanne treaty cannot be changed to make West Thrace sovereign without Greece. No country gives up treaty rights. The West especially the British annexed all islands on the planet, and made laws which determine that their uninhabited rocks in the seas give them control of the open sea. An uninhabited rock has more sea that the continent of china with billions of people. Such «laws» are not sustainable. There was already a war over the useless Falkland Islands and the world will burn over the rocks in the South China Sea unless other laws are made. If you look up Turks of Western Thrace in wikipedia you will see there are one million of them. , overall there are an estimated 1 million Turks whose roots are from Western Thrace.[53], If the situation were so good they would live at home and not 90% in exile as is the fact. There are many in Turkey, which is why Turkey is so interested in them. Take Mehmet Müezzinoğlu (born January 9, 1955) is a Turkish physician and politician, who served as the Minister of Labor and Social Security between 2016 and 2017, and the Minister of Health from 2013 to 2016. CEarly years
He was born on January 9, 1955 in Arriana village of Rhodope to Ali and his wife Fatma, a family from the Turkish minority in Greece. Müezzinoğlu went to Istanbul for his high school education. He studied in an İmam Hatip school, where he met Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was his classmate.[1][2]
Sukan Gurkaynak In my view the West was annoyed about the Cyprus operation in 1974. First they bakrupted Turkey to make her give Cyprus up. Did not work. Then they sent the PKK to break up Turkey. Did not work. Then they decided to replace the establishment with docile Islamsts. Also did not work. had they stopped the Greeks in 1963 there would have been no Cyprus issue. Had they admitted Turkey into the Eu the conflicts would have been solved. The way things stand, the fight will go on until the West recognizes Turkey as their equal. I once had a discussion with a Greek who was telling Kurdish discussion partner, they should always serve the West, that way the West would help them grab other peoples assets. This is what the Kurds are doing in Syria. Can we trust Greece to be rational?
Nick Kouzos All this is one sided view Turkey retaliates always violating treaties and produce their own rules of international law and accuse west disregarding any valid existing law. Even if Greece wanted to change international laws, we cannot implemented it We have to live under a recognized environment , otherwise we will have to submit to the law of the stronger which means to accept everything Turkey wants. This will not happen, even if we are to disappear from the map of nations we will stick by the international law. Then you bring up issues of retaliations all the time. Why you say that Turkey has to defend the rights of 150.000 of Muslims in West Thrace, they are there due to the treaty of Lausanne, who says that you have to defend them because there were 1.000.000, are you talking about their ancestors? Even so would you accept that Greeks should act for the rights of .5 million that lived in Asia Minor. I cannot make sense with your way of thinking. It makes no sense to define everything in just one-sided way. Turkey cannot interfere in another country’s situation. You are always changing the rules and every time you fail you blame the western world in its entirety. You are mixing ancestors with current populations, you stick to a treaty and you violate every law and you always have an excuse you never admit any mistake in Turkey’s policies and aspirations. You accuse EU for not accepting Turkey and at the same time you don’t comply with their rules. What do you expect EU to comply with Turkish rules?
As you most probably will say this is a western club that obey to international low. I thing we need to stop referring to the past and see what we have in front of us today. If you insist that international law is not valid then we have to prepare for the worst for both our countries. I really don’t know where this will take us. I will be talking for the millions lost in Asia Minor and you will be talking about your brothers in West Thrace and Cyprus.
Times for Change 