Thread by @theHELC

#Turkey distorting a 100 year old treaty to once again make empty threats of war against #Greece is in the finest tradition of #Putin (and before him #Goebbels). A quick primer and debunking of #Erdogan's inane claims about the #Lausanne treaty 1/13

Context: at the end of the #Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922, the Greek army, abandoned by its Western Allies and with the #Soviet #Russians openly aiding Turkey, left #Anatolia and retreated to the Greek islands of the Northern Aegean 2/13

The treaty of #Lausanne of 1923 settled matters between the belligerents. The Greek state gave up territories and populations that had been Greek for thousands of years in Asia Minor, #EasternThrace, and #Constantinople, in return for lasting peace and reconstruction 3/13

Turkey undertook numerous commitments for the protection of its Christian minorities, all of which were broken in the ensuing decades, most egregiously during the #IstanbulPogrom of 1955 that saw widespread government-sponsored anti-Greek mob attacks across the city 4/13

As a result of this and of other events of systematic repression, such as in the islands of #Imbros and #Tenedos, the Greek population of Turkey dwindled from 119,822 in 1927 to about 7,000 in 1978. Greece has repeatedly called on Turkey to respect the Lausanne treaty 5/13

In an ironic twist, #Erdogan’s regime recently rediscovered the #Lausanne treaty and are using it as a pretext to deny the sovereignty of Greece over its #Aegean islands. The clause on which they have been fixating reads as follows: 6/13

“With a view to ensuring the maintenance of peace, the Greek Government undertakes to observe the following restrictions in the islands of Mytilene, Chios, Samos and Nikaria: (1) No naval base and no fortification will be established in the said islands 7/13

“(2) Greek military aircraft will be forbidden to fly over the territory of the Anatolian coast. Reciprocally, the Turkish Government will forbid their military aircraft to fly over the said islands. 8/13

(3) The Greek military forces in the said islands will be limited to the normal contingent called up for military service , which can be trained on the spot” 9/13

#Greece has kept to its commitments, with no naval bases or fortifications on these islands and only normal contingents of the national guard. In fact, the only violation of these articles comes from the dozens of overflights of #Turkish military planes over the islands 10/13

In a reversal-of-the-truth propaganda that would make Goebbels proud, and for the first time now, 100 years after Lausanne, Turkey claims non-existent violations of these restrictions and then preposterously links them to Greece’s sovereign rights 11/13

There is no legal basis to these claims as we've seen. There is even less historical or moral one, over islands that have been inhabited exclusively by Greeks for thousands of years 12/13

Turkey has stationed a large army on the #AsiaMinor coast opposite these islands for many decades now and continues to threaten invasion and war. Greece stands ready to defend Europe. Such an outrage would surely turn Erdogan and his successors into permanent global pariahs 13/13

Source: mfa.gov.tr/lausanne-peace…