Merkel's invitation to crusader solidarity in the Mediterranean

In remarks far removed from the neutral mediating role she has for some time assumed between Turkey and Greece, German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared the other day that "all EU countries are obliged to support Greece." Continuing, Merkel said, "In the Eastern Mediterranean, all European Union countries must stand by Greece," yet she also did not shy away from claiming the role of mediator, saying, "I have made efforts to keep tensions from rising. Sometimes this is possible only if both sides talk to each other again and again. The debates there over the sharing of economic zones can only be conducted together. Germany is making efforts for this."

Yet in the very middle of the mediating role she has taken on, calling all EU countries to stand by Greece practically unconditionally, to listen to its words and to support it, is plainly to declare one's side. This is nothing other than a confession that the neutrality she has played until now toward Turkey was in fact aimed at stalling, persuading or, failing that, steering and deceiving on behalf of the other side.

Yet in the Mediterranean and the Aegean at present, it is Turkey whose rights are being plainly trampled. If EU member states listened to Turkey even a little, not even as much as they listen to Greece, they would see the blatant injustice at hand. The greed Greece displays, through its islands, in cancelling almost all of Turkey's territorial waters and appropriating them is very clear. The Greek administration demands 40 thousand square kilometers of maritime jurisdiction area for the island of Meis, which is 10 square kilometers in size and lies within Turkish territorial waters. Turkey, a mainland with a coastline of more than 2000 km on the Mediterranean, is granted less area than this island, which lies in its own territorial waters, and less than the other Greek islands.

So to speak, on the map of jurisdiction areas that is being sought, Turkey is being made unable even to cast a fishing line off its own shores. Yet such disputed matters are not arising for the first time between Turkey and Greece. They are matters that exist between France and Britain, between Italy and Greece, and between many other countries. How such disputes are resolved is well known. There is the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and its provisions on this subject are quite clear and definitely demonstrate that Turkey is in the right. Turkey is not demanding a separate privilege for itself in international law. Turkey is not attacking; it is defending itself right now.

Of course, Turkey is not blocking the way to dialogue either. But what kind of dialogue can yield what kind of result when those who are to enter into dialogue with Turkey mobilize in favor of the other side even as they hold the dialogue, and are conditioned in advance to lend an ear to the Greek side's arguments?

In fact, we have grown so accustomed to what a deception this role of neutrality is during such dialogue and mediation. In the Cyprus issue, after the Greek Cypriot side, as one of the two sides of the island, was admitted to the EU, all of the EU's mediation and problem-solving initiatives meant nothing more than an effort to somehow stall Turkey and impose the Greek Cypriot side's terms. In the negotiations conducted in Cyprus for years, the EU and especially Germany, while playing their mediating roles in favor of the Greek Cypriot side through a thoroughly rigged relationship, have at the same time used Turkey's non-acceptance of the terms they thereby impose as a pretext for not opening a whole series of negotiation chapters with Turkey.

On this matter the EU has laid bare all its intentions and its manner, and it has completely lost its credibility and its neutrality. It is futile to expect a fair, impartial, honest judgment from it on any subject.

In fact, these open statements by the German chancellor also expose Germany's historical, cultural and identity-based ties with Greece, and the principles it has sacrificed for the sake of those ties. These ties begin with the ancient Greek heritage and are completed with Crusader solidarity. There can be no other explanation for this bigoted partisanship. Germany regards itself as the owner of the cultural and philosophical heritage of the whole of Europe, whose origin it presumes to lie in ancient Greece, and in the name of upholding this heritage it does not hesitate to trample the principles it has set out in EU treaties. The solidarity with Greece to which it invites the EU countries, despite this blatant injustice, is a typical Crusader solidarity. So this is where the EU has ended up.

During the preparation of the EU constitution text in 2005, Turkey objected to the EU constitution being a Christian Union and put on record that it was (should be) secular. Even if secularism was entered into that constitution, which was later suspended, since the attitude toward Turkey grows more exclusionary with each passing day, the Christian Union character has become all the more prominent.

The Chancellor's so open deviation from justice in the face of a blatant injustice, and her invitation to others to deviate as well, can be explained only by a Crusader motivation, and this motivation bodes well neither for the EU nor for Germany. Take it from us.