Turkey will be split apart as Iraq is.

[Alexandros]

Re: Turkey will be split apart as Iraq is.

These are good questions:

1- No.
2- No. But MACEDONIA continues to be an emotional pain in the ass.
3- Yes. This has been going on for years and I think we should both shake hands and accept the fact that TR and GR airplanes just need to have their occasional dog fight over the Aegean. Its good training for pilots.

2- No. But MACEDONIA continues to be an emotional pain in the ass.

The name issue between Greece and FYROM could have been solved a long time ago.This is where Greek politics sucks.The Skopjians back in the 90s were prepared to accept the name "Slavic Macedonia" and even their President Gligorov at that time went publicly and said that his people(the slavs in FYROM) has nothing to do with Alexander the Great...anyway, Greece wasn`t willing at that time to accept a name that had "Macedonia" in a compound name - today it`s the opposite.Greece is today willing to accept a compound name with the name "Macedonia" but not the Skopjians; they said they are not willing to change their constitutional name - "Republic of Macedonia" - and if they did change their constitutional name, it would only be used between Greece and FYROM and not between FYROM and the rest of the world which Greece is not willing to accept.It has gotten so messy that FYROM has taken Greece to the ICJ because Greece(which Greece had support from other NATO countries as well in this issue) vetoed their NATO membership and they also think that Greece broke against the interim agreement between Greece and FYROM back in 1995.Greece has made it very clear to FYROM that there must be a solution to the name issue before FYROM could join NATO or the EU.

Other than the name issue and their fantasies about being descendants of Alexander the Great, naming their streets "Alexander the Great", raising statues of Alexander the Great and FYROM`s claims that there`s a "Macedonian" minority in Greece there are no other really serious issues that needs to be solved between Greece and FYROM.

Greece is by the way the largest foreign investor in FYROM.

3- Yes. This has been going on for years and I think we should both shake hands and accept the fact that TR and GR airplanes just need to have their occasional dog fight over the Aegean. Its good training for pilots.

You are cheating.I said that Turkey and Armenia were excluded.Anyway, I hope the Aegean dispute will be peacefully solved because I don`t want to see more Greek and Turkish pilots lose their lives in these dogfights which has happened before.

[hrai]

Re: Turkey will be split apart as Iraq is.

Other than the name issue and their fantasies about being descendants of Alexander the Great, naming their streets "Alexander the Great", raising statues of Alexander the Great and FYROM`s claims that there`s a "Macedonian" minority in Greece there are no other really serious issues that needs to be solved between Greece and FYROM.

This is interesting because if I remember my school-work well, Alexander & the Macedonians had real problems being accepted as Greek by Athens, Thebes etc. as they were considered to be "barbarians from the hill country".

[Alexandros]

Re: Turkey will be split apart as Iraq is.

This is interesting because if I remember my school-work well, Alexander & the Macedonians had real problems being accepted as Greek by Athens, Thebes etc. as they were considered to be "barbarians from the hill country".

Don`t know what books you were using however these Greek tribes were in war with each other from time to time and considering that Alexander`s teacher was Aristotle, spoke Greek, united all Greek tribes against the Persians and spread Hellenism for every city he conquered shouldn`t be too difficult to understand that being a Macedonian was the same thing as being Greek.

You should also wonder why FYROM`s former Prime minister Ljubčo Georgievski obtained Bulgarian - and not Greek - citizenship and speaks out against FYROM`s Pseudomacedonism.He has said that there are many Slavs in FYROM who are proud of their Slavic heritage.It`s not a coincidence that Slavs in FYROM and Bulgarians speaks basically the same language and understand each other pretty well.Neither is it a concidence that FYROM and Bulgaria have the same national heroes.


And here are some non-Greek sources:

By this time the Bulgarians, had become merged with the Slavic peoples, and the name 'Bulgarian' had become to denote all the slav-speaking people, the old term 'Sclavinians' having dropped out of use ...Greeks not only predominated in the towns but in the country-side, for the Slavic settlers had never at any time displaced completely the original populations ."
"The Greek Struggle in Macedonia 1897-1913", Institute of Balkan Studies. Douglas Dakin, 1966


The Proto-Bulgars moved to the territory of Lower Moesia and in 678-680, according to the early nith-century account of Theophanes Homologetos, subdued the seven clans and Severs (siewierzanie) the slavic tribes already living there, and resettled them on the periphery of the territory which they occupied, that is, on the frontier between the Avars and the Bulgars, and in the Balkan foothills, The Bulgars thus strengthened their hold over the territory between the Danube, the Balkans and the Black sea, and began to threaten the Byzantine possesions in Thrace.
"The New Cambridge Medieval History" edited by Paul Fouracre



And here`s an interesting U.S State department document from 1944:

[may]

Re: Turkey will be split apart as Iraq is.

But when it comes to the common EU laws and rules which the EU countries must follow, if an EU country breaks against a law or a rule, the EU commission could take that EU country to the EU court.And in very extremely situations, an EU country could actually be stripped of its EU membership if they don`t follow the common EU laws or rules - but that of course hasn`t happened.

Hi Alexandros,

There is an important difference between "being able to" and actually doing it. "Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities" which is told as one of the barriers to Turkey's membership has not been signed by France as well. It is not much told in news stories because it crystal-clearly shows double-standards of Europe. I haven't heard any news about a court action against France, let alone stripping membership.

I am aware of the unbearable lightness of critisizm that I am pursuing and I understand your stand point when you say "EU is not perfect of course". Nevertheless, as long as there are situations like I mentioned above, I think discussing the "wellness" - if there is any scale for it - of foreign relations of a country as a decisive factor for EU membership, is just a waste of time.

A quotation from http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publi...orities8en.pdf

"Nature of the Convention
Minority situations differ greatly from country to country and consequently require different approaches. Therefore, the drafters of the Convention opted for “programmatic” provisions that establish principles and objectives that should guide States in protecting their minority populations. For this reason, the Convention is largely constructed as a series of States’ obligations rather than as a detailed list of rights of persons belonging to national minorities. Realization of these principles and objectives must take place at the national level, notably through the adoption of legislation and policies. States can, to some extent, use their discretion in designing legislation and policies that are appropriate to their own circumstances. This is why the Convention is called a “Framework” Convention."

Some more info:

http://www.greekhelsinki.gr/english/articles/chrf-sar2-conseil.html

http://tinyurl.com/c7582c (pp.118)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framework_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_National_Minorities

[Alexandros]

Re: Turkey will be split apart as Iraq is.

Hi Alexandros,

There is an important difference between "being able to" and actually doing it. "Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities" which is told as one of the barriers to Turkey's membership has not been signed by France as well. It is not much told in news stories because it crystal-clearly shows double-standards of Europe. I haven't heard any news about a court action against France, let alone stripping membership.

I am aware of the unbearable lightness of critisizm that I am pursuing and I understand your stand point when you say "EU is not perfect of course". Nevertheless, as long as there are situations like I mentioned above, I think discussing the "wellness" - if there is any scale for it - of foreign relations of a country as a decisive factor for EU membership, is just a waste of time.

A quotation from http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publi...orities8en.pdf

"Nature of the Convention
Minority situations differ greatly from country to country and consequently require different approaches. Therefore, the drafters of the Convention opted for “programmatic” provisions that establish principles and objectives that should guide States in protecting their minority populations. For this reason, the Convention is largely constructed as a series of States’ obligations rather than as a detailed list of rights of persons belonging to national minorities. Realization of these principles and objectives must take place at the national level, notably through the adoption of legislation and policies. States can, to some extent, use their discretion in designing legislation and policies that are appropriate to their own circumstances. This is why the Convention is called a “Framework” Convention."

Some more info:

http://www.greekhelsinki.gr/english/articles/chrf-sar2-conseil.html

http://tinyurl.com/c7582c (pp.118)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framewo...nal_Minorities

You raise a good point may.I have difficult to understand why France hasn`t signed this convention.The only thing I know is that France has said that their constitution doesn`t recognize any minorities because all citizens are French and therefore this convention isn`t compatible with France`s constitution.I could be wrong though since I don`t know very much about the issue.On the other hand, France is one of the founding fathers of the EU however the EU back in the 50s was quite different than the EU we have today.There was no such thing as the "Copenhagen criteria" at that time.And if I`ve understood it correctly, the convention you mentioned is included in the Copenghagen criteria.There`s no doubt that joining the EU has become more and more difficult.

As for taking France and the UK to the ECJ - which they have been for other issues - I would be all for it if the EU commission think they could win in the court in order to force France to sign the convention and the UK to change its anti terror laws.Heck, I would even be prepared to support the Council if they wanted to use article 7 of the Nice treaty in order to put pressure on France and the UK to sign the convention and change its anti terror laws - although that`s a little more complicated - which means that the Council could suspend certain of the rights of the country/countries concerned.It doesn`t mean that France and the UK would see their EU membership literally stripped off but that is pretty much how France and the UK would see it as: they would be like second class members in the EU.

We should maybe thank the Austrian far right leader Jörg Haider(he died a couple of months ago in a car accident) for article 7 of the Nice treaty.Let me quote:

Background:
After several decades of Austrian coalition governments between Social Democrats and Christian Democrats (ÖVP), voters in the autumn 1999 elections demanded change and delivered a landslide 27% victory to the far right Freedom Party, the FPÖ. It's leader, the youthful rabble-rouser Jörg Haider, had comments praising the German second world war Nazi soldiers, the Waffen SS. This appalled EU heads of state so much that they felt that they had to take action when the FPÖ joined the ÖVP-led government under Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel's leadership.

In January 2000 this led to an ill-defined 'diplomatic isolation' of Austria, which, due to there not being a proper legal basis in the EU treaty, was hard to apply in practice. Furthermore it led to angry reactions among the Austrian public and boosted Haider's popularity. Former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer first praised it as "the birth of a political Europe". In reality the 'isolation' mainly amounted to an absence of polite handshakes and no-shows at meetings in Austria.

EU leaders of the 14 countries soon realised that the isolation of Austria was not politically sustainable and was probably counterproductive. A group of 'wise men' were asked to produce a report and the 'isolation' was formally lifted in September 2000.

However, in the Nice Treaty, which was finalised in December 2000, article 7 clearly addressed the 'Haider issue' by setting out how the EU should react when "a clear danger exists of a Member State committing a serious breach of fundamental rights".

The EU has the option to screen, postpone and ultimately refuse membership to a candidate country via the Copenhagen criteria on respect for democracy and rule of law, but once a country has entered the EU it becomes unclear what the EU can do in face of a breach of its main principles and values.

Article 7 of the Nice Treaty states that the European Council can declare the existence of "a serious and persistent breach of fundamental rights". If this occurs, the Council may, by a qualified majority, suspend certain of the rights of the country concerned.

Link

And the new "Treaty of Lisbon" or the "EU-constitution" - which Turkey also supports - will replace all other current treaties.

25 EU countries have ratified the Treaty of Lisbon and 2 more EU countries needs to ratify the new treaty in order for the new EU constitution to be adopted.


And lastly, you could always pick an issue here or there and accuse the EU for double-standards but what the Turks should ask themselves is that: would Turkey been more democratic today if they didn`t implement all those reforms in order to join the EU?(I`m not trying to excuse the flaws in the EU)

[UrMistake]

Re: Turkey will be split apart as Iraq is.

Turkish planes fly over greek sea not the oposit so what shake of hand u talking about?
The Critan muslims are gone time ago they were turks,cypriot muslims are turks so how they can be greeks and that greeks have to accept them?
And yeah thats why Turkish army likes US army in IRAQ cause they allow them to invade the country 2 against the kurds.Turks didnt like the fact that US military were arming kurds.
So the initial plan of turks will not work.Turks are not so good people that protect freedom of others so they say no to US invasion against a sadist Dictator.

[may]

Re: Turkey will be split apart as Iraq is.

And lastly, you could always pick an issue here or there and accuse the EU for double-standards but what the Turks should ask themselves is that: would Turkey been more democratic today if they didn`t implement all those reforms in order to join the EU?(I`m not trying to excuse the flaws in the EU)

Hi Alexandros, I am aware that criticising is an easy thing, especially for complex instutions like EU. My main point was assessing Turkey's membership in the light of her relations with neighbours: There are more important, unavoidable issues to be resolved before it comes to neighbor relations.

That being said, the regulations for EU are not issues that EU invented. EU, with all the double standards, want to play the world's new power, an example of a country(!) with all "humanistic" values in the world. EU tries to represent the "west" and its "values". The world politics demand such regulations, and EU tries to put an example of an instutition with all the regulations that world demands. As Gandhi put it about western civilization, "it would be a very good idea". However, as historically the case for Europe, Europeans are not good followers of "their values" when it works against their benefit. EU members fail to act in coherence to implement those regulations that they force EU candidate countries to accept.

Would Turkey be more democratic if EU norms were not implemented? Probably no, but for NOW. But nobody can claim that these regulations will not be demanded by the Turkish citizens as well in close future. And who knows, maybe with a delay, these regulations would be implemented with public support instead of top-down laws and better embraced by the people.

Still, I am happy about these regulations to be passed as laws in Turkey. But whenever EU is pointed as the body that those regulations materalize as flesh&blood, I remember these "unfortunate" facts about how they are implemented in EU.

[Alexandros]

Re: Turkey will be split apart as Iraq is.

Would Turkey be more democratic if EU norms were not implemented? Probably no, but for NOW. But nobody can claim that these regulations will not be demanded by the Turkish citizens as well in close future. And who knows, maybe with a delay, these regulations would be implemented with public support instead of top-down laws and better embraced by the people.

Erdogan has made it very clear that he wants Turkey to join the EU.Many of his voters knows that very well considering that they have been in power since 2002.And from what I know, is that AKP is going to win - not in all regions and citys but in many of them if you are to believe the latest polls.

[Eddo211]

Re: Turkey will be split apart as Iraq is.

.........3- This has been going on for years and I think we should both shake hands and accept the fact that TR and GR airplanes just need to have their occasional dog fight over the Aegean. Its good training for pilots.

Yea but not much has been happening since May 2006 when them two Greek F-16s made a fool out of your two Turkish pilots in a mock Dogfight over Aegean………………..right after one of your jets made a sudden provocetive manoeuvre that violated air-traffic rules and could have been almost e classifyed as provoking War between the two countries.

Too bad your humiliated pilot lost his cool after the conclusion of the engagement and decided to ram the Greek Jet from behind instead of heading home.

This is proof that you have learned nothing from your training over the hot deserts of Tucson Arizona. I get the lowdown that comes from some of your American flight Instructors and they indicated indirectly that you can’t handle pressure let alone multitasking/prioritizing in a highly volatile and stressful environment but wait, it does however seem like you have learned the classic desperate Nazi’s Luftapha offensive of "ramming technique" used in WWII which fits right in with the Fascist/borderline Jihadist mentality……….but the German pilots were taking out Bombers valiently, not other fighters in a fit of anger.

That kind of mentality will only get you killed up there Turk. Lucky your Government has decided not to “play” anymore.........Ha.

[may]

Re: Turkey will be split apart as Iraq is.

Erdogan has made it very clear that he wants Turkey to join the EU.Many of his voters knows that very well considering that they have been in power since 2002.And from what I know, is that AKP is going to win - not in all regions and citys but in many of them if you are to believe the latest polls.

Hi Alexandros,

If you look at the Turkey's progress for EU, you'll notice the great drag after the initial fast period after Erdogan came to power. Whoever came to power at that time HAD TO pass these regulations because political scene was pressing for it and good relations with EU had a political gain behind it. Erdogan semi-dictatorship leadership reinforced its power among intellectual elite at those times. Once he was done with gaining the overall support for his first term, he stopped making any move towards other regulations. This includes the progress in Kurdish problem as well. And believe me, EU is not among the top priority list of AKP supporters.