Turkey’s despotic President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is growing bolder by the day in pursuit of his jihadist ambitions of conquest and revival of the Ottoman empire. As the world tolerates Turkish aggression and NATO continues to allow this enemy to be part of its alliance, Erdogan’s worst tendencies are continually being reinforced and encouraged.
Turkish Spy Planes Violate Greek Airspace Dozens of Times,” by Chris Tomlinson, Breitbart, August 13, 2020:
Tensions between Turkey and Greece remain at a high, with the Turkish regime allegedly repeatedly violating Greek airspace this week with CN-235 spy planes.
Greece accused Turkey of 45 violations of Greek airspace on Tuesday, 35 of which were said to have been conducted by C-235 spy planes flying into the north-east, central, and southern Aegean sea. Turkish fighter jets also encroached on Greek airspace.
According to a report from Greek newspaper Proto Thema, in at least three cases, Greek fighter jets managed to intercept the Turkish aircraft.
Greece and Turkey continue to have rocky relations as the Turkish research vessel Oruc Reis remains in the Mediterranean, escorted by an estimated 10 Turkish naval warships.
The vessel looks to conduct seismic research in an area of the Mediterranean sea, which Greece claims is part of the Greek exclusive economic zone (EEZ)….
jirtu says
For at least five years I have been asking: “when will the world–particularly the West–say ‘enough is enough’ and put Erdogan in his place? And yet, his every outrage, his every threat, his every aggression is met by silence. What’s holding the EU and NATO from shutting the mouth of a man who relentlessly threatens its neighbors? And now he says he is unhappy with Treaty of Lausanne which was to Turkey’s advantage: he wants more or else, Trump, with his and his family’s financial interests in Turkey, will not hurt Erdogan. So far, it’s only France which has taken up the challenge. When will other nations join in a coalition to silence this two-legged pestilence? Why not a coalition of Greece, Cyprus, France, Italy, Egypt, Israel, Syria, Iraq, Armenia, and Haftar’s army? The idea being not just to dump Erdogan but destroy Turkey’s military capabilities so it would never again threaten neighboring countries.
Raja says
Good post. But the saying goes: Who bell the cat?
Beverly Teboe says
Woe, that pic of Erdogan with horns growing out of his head is very accurate.
J Morgan says
+1
spiro says
Exactly
Frank Anderson says
Think about the many times Nazi Germany flew missions over Soviet airspace prior to Barbarossa. Ignoring those missions made a great difference in the early success of the invasion. There was a special airplane built for the high altitude flights, a 1940’s propeller version of the 1960’s U-2. Only the Soviets did not shoot them down.
James Lincoln says
Frank,
I think this was the Junkers Ju 86P…
Frank Anderson says
James, it may be 30 years since I saw a picture of a single engine really long wing German(?) high altitude photo plane. I don’t remember and have started looking. I did see the 86P in Wikipedia and agree it would do well in that role. ONE of the advantages it had, in my opinion from my engineering work, is that the exhaust gas temperature of a diesel engine is substantially lower than a gasoline engine. This is important for making a turbocharger live longer.
I may be confused. The picture may have been of a Russian plane. Thank you for your note.
Foster says
For over 100 years, if not more, the West has been kowtowing to Turkey.
This does not mean that Turkish leaders and diplomats are smart.
It means the West’s leaders and leaders are weak-kneed.
There are only two things that will stop Turkey:
1. Severe sanctions or
2. Military action, hopefully by a combined force of NATO and Middle East countries.
Turkey is a bully, and we know how to deal with bullies.
Who will stand up first and be counted among those unhappy with Turkish belligerence?
elee says
+1
elee says
Why should Erdogan expect the West to support Greece any more than it did a century ago? Some first-worlder kindly tell me.
mortimer says
The Western Powers are befuddled by anything to do with the Balkans. The Balkan peoples are also befuddled by their own mutual hatreds. It’s a case of unscrambling an omelette.
GreekEmpress says
+1
SAFI says
My disagreement with Robert Spencer is that he seems to attribute this policy to Ergogan personally when in fact turkish warplanes violating greek airspace is something which has been going on since… I don’t know, the 80s? (maybe even earlier … and I could bring even more examples to prove Erdogan’s… *ahem* “innocence” and show how misunderstood that poor guy actually is)
The only thing that’s changed under Erdogan is the technology (again not thanks to him) so Turkey now also uses dnones for these violations.
I’d say it was Turkey’s fault when these “violations” first started decades ago, but at this point it’s mostly Greece’s fault for not having shot down any turkish jets in all those years despite having spent billions on its air-defences. … Turkey has every reason to believe that airspace belongs to them now given how nonchalant (or rather cowardly) Greece has always been about it. For the most part all they’ve done when armed turkish bombers fly over Greek territory is bitch about it. Greece should either shoot them down or shut the hell up and stop complaining… or stop wasting all that money or air-defences if they’re not intent on using them…
gravenimage says
Robert Spencer knows that Turkey’s being a hotbed of Islamic aggression predates Erdogan–in fact, Spencer’s ancestors fled Turkey. Note that this article is titled “Turkish Spy Planes Violate Greece Airspace 45 Times”–it does not say this is all about Erdogan.
mortimer says
Air forces sometimes test their opponents’ ability to detect them and sometimes, its pilot error. Erdolf is also playing diplomatic games with the Western Powers. His Islamic supremacism is no different than other Islamic supremacisms. He has a zero % chance of reviving the Ottoman Empire. There are no countries that favor it … probably not even most of the Turks. There is still the possibility that a new generations of Turks may want to return to secularism.
SAFI says
@gravenimage Robert Spencer’s comment reads
“Turkey’s despotic President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is growing bolder by the day in pursuit of his jihadist ambitions of conquest and revival of the Ottoman empire. As the world tolerates Turkish aggression and NATO continues to allow this enemy to be part of its alliance, Erdogan’s worst tendencies are continually being reinforced and encouraged.”
And this is not the first time RS mislabels kemalist policies as “islamist” and credits them to Erdogan. And I could give a couple more specific examples where RS commits the same error.
gravenimage says
Actually, SAFI, violent Jihad is not Kemalist. Ataturk generally worked to curb Islam; Erdogan has long been reviving it.
Of course, Dar-al-Islam even under Ataturk was pretty ugly. That does not mean that this ugliness is not Islamic.
SAFI says
What is “violent jihad”? Challenging your neighboring country’s sovereignty is jihad? So when China is doing the same the South China Sea are you saying Xi is waging jihad against the Philippines and Vietnam? And how are these policies not kemalist when they’ve been designed by kemalists? I can name names if you wish.
gravenimage says
No, SAFI, not every act of aggression is Jihad.
But Turkey going after Greece–the Infidel nation that was able to escape the Islamic heel in the 19th century–and whose people it slaughtered along with the Armenians during the Armenian genocide certainly is.
This is rather like saying that turning Hagia Sophia into a Mosque has nothing to do with Islam, but is just Kemalist.
It was not the Kemalists who instituted Turkish Muslim aggression against Christian Greece–this actually *much* predates Ataturk, whatever you may believe.
SAFI says
like saying that turning Hagia Sophia into a Mosque has nothing to do with Islam
this is not what I said though, is it? Totally differerent thing.
Please go find the turkish secularists who designed this policy and the ones currently running the turkish military and implementing it and see if you can convince them that what they’re doing is waging jihad in the way of Allah. I know some of these people, I can give you names and adresses.
If your argument is “Greece is Christian, therefore it’s obviously jihad agaimst the infidel” I wonder what you say everytime Turkey violates Iraq’s sovereignty. I also wonder what the people who believe that turkish aggression is all about what the koran says, are gonna say if and when Erdogan falls from power and is replaced by the good secularists who in all likehood will continue the exact same foreign policy(especially towards Greece). They’ll probably just stop paying attention like they did in all the decades before Erdogan.
SAFI says
*likelihood (missed a syllable… though I should have rather said ‘certainty’)
SAFI says
I actually take that back because I just now noticed that this is actually signed by Christine-Douglass-Williams – NOT RS. My mistake, though I stand by the rest of what I’ve written.
gravenimage says
Turkish spy planes violate Greece airspace 45 times
……………..
They are more and more emboldened.
Man of Iblis says
And they are getting closer to a bloody genocide that they will commit against the opposition and minorities.
gravenimage says
That’s what I worry about, Man of Iblis.
mortimer says
The US and UK should plan an over-night, mushroom-like construction of a large airbase in the Kurdistan region from which it can act independently from Turkey and without Turkish permission. This will send the message to Turkey to either play by the rules of NATO or face serious consequences. It would be disastrous to have Turkey allied with Russia.
Frank Anderson says
Mortimer, a potentially illustrative parallel from history: How much value was Mussolini to Hitler? How many times did he distract and waste hurting the German war effort (Thank God!) more than he helped?
Erdolf will never be anything approaching a reliable ally. Imagining that he will is one more example of Vikor Frankl’s delusion of reprieve. (Man’s Search for Meaning), The proof of the pudding is in the eating, not the show.