Undeclared Greco-Turkish War. The meaning of the word cyprus in the dictionary for solving and compiling scanwords
Greek-Turkish conflict
Island of bad luck in the Aegean
Yesterday at 4 am GMT came into force an agreement between Greece and Turkey on the phased withdrawal of their warships from the disputed island of Imia (Turkish name Kardak) in the Aegean Sea. Thus, the conflict between NATO partners, which almost escalated into a military confrontation, was successfully resolved. And the campaign portrait of US President Bill Clinton was decorated with another palm branch of the peacemaker.
The White House managed to settle a new quarrel in the "Balkan communal apartment" in a day. Bill Clinton engaged in educational work with junior partners in NATO personally, having phoned on Tuesday evening with Greek Prime Minister Kostis Simitis, his Turkish counterpart Tansu Ciller and President Suleiman Demirel. The night watch was kept by Secretary of State Warren Christopher and assistant Richard Holbrook, white-hot telephone lines Washington-to-Athens and Washington-to-Ankara. NATO Secretary General Javier Solana did not lag behind, making appropriate suggestions to the military ministers of both countries and their ambassadors in Brussels. By morning, both the Greeks and the Turks agreed to return their aircraft to their original state (a day earlier they were put on high alert), remove the flags from the island and sit down at the negotiating table.
The legal background of the conflict is thoroughly confused. In their claims to Imia, both sides refer to "internationally recognized documents." And on the same ones: the Turkish-Italian agreements of January 4, 1932, according to which Italy transferred sovereignty over the group of Dodecanese Islands (including the island of Imia) in the Aegean Sea to Greece, and the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947 of a similar content. Ankara generally refuses to recognize the agreements, arguing that they were concluded "in the context of the analysis of the situation before the Second World War" and are no longer valid, and the protocol of 1932 was not registered at all in the League of Nations. Ankara also disputes the authority of the Paris Treaty on this issue - according to the Turkish version, the current conflict flared up because of the two Kardak Islands, and they are not mentioned in the agreement. But within the framework of the Paris Treaty, the Turks still agree to argue with the Greeks at the negotiating table. And their trump card will be the geographical factor: Kardak is 5.5 miles from the nearest Greek island, but 3.8 miles from the Turkish coast.
In general, the island feuds between Athens and Ankara have been dragging on for a long time, and their history is rich in conflict situations. True, after the events of Cyprus in 1974 (as a result of which the island was split into two parts), the parties only once found themselves on the verge of an armed conflict (in March 1987, having quarreled over mineral resources Aegean Sea). Now, according to experts, a military confrontation between Greece and Turkey is practically out of the question (in particular, such an opinion was expressed in an interview with a Kommersant correspondent by the head of the Turkish department of the Russian Foreign Ministry Vladimir Solotsinsky and the head of the department of Greece and Cyprus Vladimir Brygin: the countries are partners in NATO, and soon time and according to the EU - Athens is already in the Union, Turkey is striving to go there). In other words, neither Ankara nor Athens seriously intended to solve the island problem by military means. On the eve of the conflict, the parties did not seem to be opposed to sitting down at the negotiating table (Athens offered this more than once, Ankara generally claims that this is the only thing it is trying to achieve). But things turned out differently - a game of muscles, and one gets the impression that in this way both Ankara and Athens rather tried to solve their internal problems.
However, it is possible that a group of Greek Robinsons hoisted the blue and white flag over Imia, who made their way to desert island solely under the influence of an unexpected surge of patriotic feelings. It is also possible that Turkish journalists (as Kommersant found out, from the largest and Greek flag into Turkish also for purely patriotic reasons (and maybe in pursuit of a sensation). And the Turkish and Greek leaders, also offended in the best patriotic feelings, pulled together seven (according to other sources, ten) warships and put the Armed Forces and the Air Force on alert.
But another version seems more likely. Simitis, who made his debut as prime minister just a week ago, urgently needs to collect political dividends: the situation in the cabinet and the ruling PASOK with the departure of Andreas Papandreou is far from unambiguous. The difficult situation in Ankara is also a series of government crises caused by the aggravation of relations between the ruling Çiller party and the conservative opposition. If the prime minister fails to form a cabinet this time, the constitution provides for the possibility of new parliamentary elections (45 days from the previous elections are running out). So play out national map- and to the maximum - beneficial to both Athens and Ankara. By the way, they say about Chiller that she is generally haunted by the laurels of Margaret Thatcher (and she, as you know, fought victoriously with Argentina). In addition, the history of Turkey knows such an example: Prime Minister Byulend Ecevit, who sent troops to Cyprus in 1974, became almost a national hero, and he was "written off" by fundamental miscalculations in domestic politics.
What is the upshot? The Turkish government seems to still be able to score points. In any case, Çiller presents the outcome of the conflict as a great success for Ankara. As for Simitis, his debut in big politics cannot be called successful: the opposition has already dubbed the cabinet's consent to the withdrawal of troops a betrayal and is demanding his resignation. A vote of confidence in the government is scheduled for this night in parliament.
VALERIA Y-SYCHEVA
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Greece announced that on 16 February Turkish aircraft invaded her air space. Six Turkish fighters, two armed with missiles, crossed the border and left only after Greek Navy fighters were raised to intercept them. At the same time it became known that the Greek rescuers found the body of the last of the three pilots of the Agusta-Bell AB.212 helicopter, which crashed during the exercises, which practiced the search for a small vessel on the sea surface. These two incidents are just episodes. undeclared war lasting for many decades.
Hundreds of years of hate
Turkish-Greek relations have always been far from ideal. From the moment the Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople in 1453 until the declaration of independence in 1830, Greece lived under the heavy hand of the sultans. And then repeatedly and with varying success fought with Turkey. As a result of these conflicts between the two countries, a complex maritime border. A number of islands came to the Greeks through second hands - from the Italians who captured them earlier. The ownership of some territories has remained uncertain.
The sluggish territorial dispute did not prevent both countries from joining NATO. It seems that relations have improved, but the Cyprus issue ruined everything. The Greek Cypriots demanded enosis - the reunification of the island with Greece, the Turks in response staged Greek pogroms in Istanbul. In 1974, Turkey, using the nationalist coup in Cyprus as a pretext, occupied northern part islands and created an unrecognized state - the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
Economic disputes were superimposed on political disputes. After oil was found on the shelf of the Aegean Sea, the questions of belonging to one or another uninhabited rock acquired extraordinary significance. Both Greece and Turkey issued permits to their companies to extract oil in disputed waters and sent research vessels there, accusing each other of trying to control the lion's share of the oil-bearing shelf. Neither NATO, nor the International Court of Arbitration, nor the UN Security Council could convince Athens and Ankara to reach a compromise. Although the conflict never reached the hot phase: at the most critical moments, the leadership of the North Atlantic Alliance intervened.
air games
As a result, imitations of air battles, "dog dumps" - dogfights, became the main way to demonstrate territorial claims. Since the First World War, this word has denoted a short-range maneuverable air battle. F-16s and Mirages of the Greek Air Force intercepted Turkish F-16s, after which the pilots made dangerous maneuvers, trying to sit on the tail of the enemy and force him out of the disputed space. Sometimes the pilots kept each other in sight for several minutes. The fact that the planes on both sides were armed added a special urgency to the "competition".
Basically, "dumps" occurred over the islands of Lesbos, Chios, Samos and the Dodecanese archipelago. Foreign tourists, who spent their holidays in Greek resorts, could at the same time admire the imitation of air battles over their heads. Basically, the Turkish pilots violated the border, but sometimes the Greeks flew into the adjacent airspace, usually during turns after the Turks were forced out of the Greek sky. Neither Athens nor Ankara recognized the facts of violation of foreign borders, although after another incident, the General Staff of the affected side traditionally issued a statement in which they publicly condemned, angrily condemned and resolutely resented.
Sometimes these imitations of air battles led to tragedies. So, on June 18, 1992, the Greek Mirage, which got involved in a “dog dump” with two Turkish F-16s at an extremely low altitude over the island of Agios Efstratios, crashed, the pilot Nikolaos Sialmas died.
Rocks in the ocean
For the time being, the world community was blissfully unaware of the Greek-Turkish dispute: few people were interested in incomprehensible air games over the waters of the Aegean Sea and mutual reproaches of the two General Staffs. But in 1996, everything changed: two NATO member countries were on the brink of war with each other.
The crisis was caused by the captain's navigational error Turkish cargo ship Figen Akat, as a result of which the ship on December 25, 1995 flew ashore on one of the two islands of Imia, indicated on Turkish maps under the name Kardak. Just two uninhabited patches of land in the sea, the Greek sovereignty over which until then no one seriously disputed. The captain of the cargo ship refused the help offered by the Greeks, claiming that he was in Turkish territorial waters, and turned to the Turkish rescue services.
Four days later, Turkey officially declared Kardak its territory, followed by an exchange of angry notes. A patriotic campaign has unfolded in the Greek press, and on its wave the mayor neighboring island Kalymnos, accompanied by three other Greek citizens, including a priest, raised the Greek flag over Imia on January 26.
But he fluttered there for a short time. The next day, Turkish journalists from the Hurriyet newspaper landed on the islands. They lowered the Greek flag and raised the Turkish one. The whole ceremony was broadcast on Turkish television in live and caused a new surge of patriotism, this time among the citizens of Turkey. A day later, a group of Greek commandos who secretly landed on east island, again changed the flag to Greek.
The Prime Ministers of Turkey and Greece, Tansu Çiller and Kostas Simitis exchanged sharp statements. Both sides hastily pulled up to the disputed islands warships. After a Turkish frigate violated Greek territorial waters on January 30, aiming guns at a Greek military boat, and a Turkish Navy helicopter passing at low altitude over the disputed islands, the entire Greek fleet left the harbor in Piraeus and began to turn around in the Aegean Sea.
Early in the morning of January 31, a reconnaissance helicopter with three pilots on board took off from the Greek Navy frigate Navarino. When the rotorcraft was over western island, the pilots reported that they saw armed people raising the Turkish flag (they were Turkish special forces who landed on the island at night). After that, communication with the helicopter was cut off.
The nerves of the sailors on both sides were on edge. Politicians in Ankara and in Athens realized that they had come to the very edge of the abyss. The Turkish and Greek authorities decided not to make the incident public: if the press found out about it, the situation could get out of control.
The United States intervened in the conflict: the White House realized that a little more, and two NATO members, providing cover for the southern flank of the alliance, would start a war with each other. The settlement plan was developed with the participation of the then head of the United States, Bill Clinton. The president's special envoy, Richard Holbrooke, called first to Ankara, then to Athens, urging them to play back. Eventually Greece and Turkey agreed to withdraw their troops and restore the pre-crisis status quo. However, from their claims to disputed islands neither side refused.
Until now, many in Greece are sure that the helicopter was shot down by Turkish special forces, and official version, according to which the car crashed due to technical problems, was invented retroactively to reassure the public. The dead helicopter pilots - Christodoulos Karathanasis, Panagiotis Vlahakos and Ektoras Gialopsos - are considered national heroes by the Greek right.
In January 2016, the new Minister of Defense and leader of the right-wing Independent Greeks party, Panos Kammenos, arrived on the Imia Islands to pay tribute to the dead pilots. As he laid flowers at their headstone, a pair of Turkish fighter jets roared over him, demonstrating that the dispute over the islands was not yet over.
But we won't tell you about them.
The concealment of information about incidents like the death of a helicopter from the Navarino has become a distinctive feature of the Greek-Turkish crisis. The best example is the incident on 8 October 1996, eight months after the Imia conflict. Turkish F-16 taking off from air force base in the province of Balikesir and was on a training flight, crashed near the island of Chios in Greek airspace. One of the pilots, Lieutenant Colonel Osman Chilekli, managed to eject. He was picked up by a Greek rescue helicopter and handed over Turkish side. The co-pilot, Captain Nail Erdogan, has gone missing. His body was never found.
Almost immediately, Erdogan's relatives said: the authorities are hiding the truth, the plane was shot down by the Greek Air Force. The authorities categorically denied this information. However, 16 years later, Lieutenant Colonel Chilekli, who had previously refused to communicate with the press, confirmed that his fighter was shot down by a Greek missile. “This incident was a disgrace to our armed forces - that's why we kept silent for so long,” Cilekli admitted. - Erdogan's family was told the truth in private. But in this case, as in others, there are still many mysteries.
After that, the Turkish authorities finally broke the conspiracy of silence: Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz confirmed that an F-16D aircraft was shot down in 1996 by a Greek Mirage-2000 fighter using an R.550 Magic II air-to-air missile. Two years later, this was officially recognized by the Turkish government.
Over the past 20 years since the incident, Greek and Turkish journalists have established many circumstances surrounding the death of Captain Erdogan. Even the name of the Greek pilot who shot down the F-16 is known - Thanos Grivas. However, there are still many ambiguities in the case. The Turks claim that the F-16 did not carry regular weapons, and therefore its destruction was cold-blooded murder. The Greeks claim that the Turkish plane was armed, was accompanied by another car, got involved in the “dump” itself, and the Greek pilot pressed the trigger by accident.
Documents of the Greek Ministry of Defense could shed light on this incident, but official Athens still categorically denies that the F-16 was shot down. Be that as it may, after the death of Erdogan, Greek and Turkish planes flew out on patrol without weapons. Although, as shown further developments and it didn't help.
I'm going to ram
On May 23, 2006, two Turkish F-16s and a reconnaissance F-4 entered international space over the southern Aegean Islands at an altitude of 8200 meters without warning the Greek controllers. A pair of Greek F-16s rushed to intercept, overtaking the Turks over the island of Karpathos. A traditional dogfight ensued. It all ended sadly: the Greek and Turkish cars collided. The Greek Kostas Iliakis died, the Turk Khalil Ibrahim Ozdemir managed to eject.
Photo: Li Rui / Xinhua / Zumapress / Globallookpress.com
It is not known exactly what exactly happened in the sky over Karpathos. Greek nationalists claim that the pilot Iliakis went on a ram and liquidated the aggressor at the cost of his life. Left-wing journalists assume an accident. But after that, the planes of the Greek and Turkish Air Forces again began to fly on missions with weapons under their wings.
The undeclared war for the Aegean led to new victims. A year later, a Turkish pilot crashed during a training flight, practicing actions in a "dump", and in 2010, two Greek pilots died due to an error in calculating the maneuver at an extremely short distance.
Sky on fire
Not surprisingly, after the Turks shot down a Russian bomber, at a meeting with Sergei Lavrov, Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias expressed condolences and solidarity with Moscow. Kotzias complained about the constant violations of Greek airspace by Turkish aircraft. Until recently, Greek air traffic controllers annually recorded an average of 1.5 thousand cases of Turkish aircraft intrusion, but since 2014 this figure has increased dramatically: in January 2014 alone, the Turks violated the Greek air border 1,017 times.
Such large numbers should not be surprising. Say, in July 2015, six Turkish F-18s entered Greek airspace. Before four Greek fighters landed on their tail, the Turks managed to violate the border at least 20 times. Similar incidents were observed in December last year and in February this year.
The situation is more and more reminiscent of the one that developed by 1995: daily Greek fighters take to the skies to intercept Turkish intruders with missiles on pylons. And it’s not a fact that someday the next Thanos Grivas will not flinch his finger on the trigger again.
