ERDOGAN WILL NOT GIVE UP

Morning paper news sport j2 money culture scene video subscription US AND EU DETERMINED Dangerously rattling weapons, experts are asking the US and the EU to react urgently: 'Erdogan will not give up!' Erdogan's policy aims to create a Greater Turkey, Turkish expert Günter Seufert tells DW Author: Jutarnji HRPosted: July 24, 2020 4:06 pm Adem ALTAN / AFP Adem ALTAN / AFP Adem Altan Facebook Twitter Messenger E-mail RELATED NEWS Turkish warship, Angela Merkel KEY CALL The highest-circulation German newspaper: Merkel prevented an armed conflict in the Mediterranean on Tuesday! MINISTERS AGREE The European Union says it is preparing a 'coordinated' response to China and Turkey The weapons are rattling louder and louder after Ankara's announcement that it will send the research ship Oruk Reis to the Greek island of Kastelorizo ​​in the Aegean Sea, which is only three kilometers from the Turkish mainland, Deutsche Welle writes . There, according to the announcements, the Turkish ship should investigate potential underwater deposits of natural gas and oil for a month. However, Greece considers this sea zone as its territorial waters and a zone in which it has the exclusive right to explore and exploit the seabed. The armies of both countries are on heightened alert and, according to Bild, only the mediation of German Chancellor Angela Merkel prevented an open conflict on Tuesday night. According to the paper, Turkish military planes flew over Kasteloriko, Greek planes were also in the air, and only the chancellor's telephone contact with Turkish President Erdogan and Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis prevented a military clash. Negotiations are the only solution "It can be assumed that Erdogan will continue his policy of military stinging," Günter Seufert of the Berlin Center for Applied Turkish Studies told DW . He is convinced that the Turkish president will not give up drilling underwater in the area that Greece considers his own, just as he entered the area to which the Cypriots claim the right. "Whether there will therefore be a war depends on how Greece behaves: whether it offers Turkey negotiations or not," Seufert continues. "And it depends on how the EU and, above all, the United States are set up. Finally, Greece and Turkey are members of NATO, and large NATO members should intervene as mediators." Seufert believes that negotiations are the only solution to conflicting interpretations of maritime law. While Greece considers the sea around its islands to belong to Greek territorial waters (based on the right to an "exclusive economic zone of 200 nautical miles around the island") - even if the islands were right off the Turkish coast - Turkey says it does not imply an exclusive right to energy. EU and US indecision While the EU has so far limited itself to statements and threats of sanctions against Turkey, the United States is in a difficult position, Seufert said. "On the one hand, they have a lot of disputes with Turkey anyway - just think of Turkey's purchase of a Russian S-400 missile system. On the other hand, the United States is trying to suppress Russia's influence in the eastern Mediterranean and Libya with Turkey's help. take a primary position against Russia or primarily discipline Turkey. " "Erdogan is making extensive use of this US zigzag policy, as well as the EU's indecision," Seufert concludes. The former correspondent from Turkey and a lecturer at the universities of Istanbul and Nicosia, recalls that the EU once had a coherent policy towards Turkey in the negotiations with that country on joining the Union. "As this process was very normatively organized - namely according to the implementation of democratic reforms in Turkey - all EU countries could stand behind it," says Seufert. But it failed. "Many individual topics are now in the forefront - the refugee issue, energy policy, Turkey's role in Syria and Libya. In all these issues, individual EU countries have different positions in line with national interests," Seufert added. Erdogan's goal is "Greater Turkey" When asked by DW journalists whether it was a coincidence that on the same day (July 24) when the first Islamic prayer was held in the Hagia Sophia, which was again turned into a mosque, a Turkish ship planned to leave near the Greek island and mark the anniversary of the 1923 treaty. is the defined border between Turkey and Greece, Seufert says: "This is not a coincidence. Mr. Erdogan's policy is aimed at creating a Greater Turkey. It is a Turkey that is not oriented towards the West like Turkey's Kemal Ataturk, but a Turkey permeated by the history and imperial greatness of the Ottoman Empire," he said. Erdogan's motto, he says, is for Turkey to become the strongest power in the region in the vacuum created by the US withdrawal and the weakness of the EU, and for Turkey to represent the interests of Sunni Muslims in the Middle East, Deutsche Welle writes . "The practical consequences of this policy are the armament of the Turkish army and the militarization of foreign policy in the eastern Mediterranean. This policy also has large symbolic dimensions, such as the transformation of the Hagia Sophia into a mosque."