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Most Greeks accept that Allied overreach at end of WW2

That would be WWI, right? Turkey wasn't a belligerent in WWII as far as I recall.

But there's something really serious going on currently as well, and it dates back from 1922. Turkey entered a peace agreement it didn't like with the allies, and it ceded the Dodecanese and some Sporades islands to Italy. Italy, after its failed invasion of Greece, ceded these to Greece. Turkey has never been happy about that, and it maintains a casus belli against Greece. Turkey threatens war if Greece assumes its international rights in taking complete possession of these islands. Greece has offered to Turkey to take these grievances to international court, but the Turks do not like the initial treaty in the first place.

In other words, Turkey and Greece have a living treaty dispute which may be all the more dangerous because of constant talk of drilling for gas and oil in the disputed territory.

Interesting. I didn't know that. Diary-worthy material, perhaps? Certainly, it would rattle some of the locally held prejudices hereabout vis-a-vis Turkey's mistreatment by the EU. And qualified prejudice-rattling can never be an entirely bad thing.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Wed Jun 9th, 2010 at 03:18:20 PM EST
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