Why Erdogan ‘spoke Greek’

Of Costa Rapti

Why did Erdogan choose to address his threatening messages in Greek via Twitter? The first answer has to do with the fact that this underscores the closure of the channels with the Greek government. The Turkish leader recently and publicly “canceled” Kyriakos Mitsotakis as his interlocutor, so it is a logical consequence that any of his messages do not follow the official path, but are transmitted directly to the Greek people, bypassing and denouncing his political leadership.

The second reason has to do with the fact that Erdogan’s message is an ultimatum and not a bargaining chip. An ultimatum, which unabashedly recalls the centuries-old catastrophes of Hellenism aimed at terrorism, commonly operates with the logic of psychological operations.

At the same time, the wording of the message in Greek does not facilitate its first-hand reproduction in foreign media, thus mitigating the impact on international public opinion. After all, the environment (perhaps even the Greek public) has been addicted for decades to the fact that there are frictions between Greece and Turkey and will not easily understand the intersection of shifting the debate from sovereign rights to sovereignty over large inhabited islands, and therefore in the logic of border revision.

But this is exactly what leads us to the third and most important reason: the Turkish leadership, as in this case Erdogan, systematically blackmails the Greek side to stand alone against Turkey and deprive itself of the implications of its Euro-Atlantic membership. In addition to this, Turkey calls on the Euro-Atlantic institutions to stop being “manipulated” by a “problematic”, “selfish” and “aggressive” member, while highlighting its own “sacrifices” in favor of common goals, as we see in the tweets. Paradoxically, this is a reversal of what Ankara is really doing, but also of the fact that what has primarily irritated it are the Greek defense agreements with the US and France, which are interpreted as moves by Turkey to from the West and a harbinger of other types of pressure.

In other words, a scenario of “isolation” of Greece is underway, and this scenario unfolds in three areas: the communication, the legal (with the sending to the UN of a new Turkish letter consisting of six positions, the first of which is the new theory the “interconnection” of the sovereignty of the islands of the eastern Aegean from their demilitarization), but also the operational one, with the personal presence of Erdogan and Bahceli in the large amphibious exercise Efes 2020, which involves forces from 37 other countries, including France and Italy.

And the “isolation” of Greece can be considered a realistic goal, to the extent that our country has lost all support outside the Euro-Atlantic area, namely between natural “counterweights” to Turkey (eg Russia, Iran, Syria), while on the contrary, the neighboring country has the luxury of balancing its Eurasian and Middle Eastern openings with its membership in a “western camp”, which it deeply considers weakened and blackmailed.