Thread by @Zemenides

When I studied in the U.K., I enjoyed hearing people refrain from calling b.s. on specious arguments and analyses and using the epithet “rubbish” instead.

This analysis by @FT qualifies as “rubbish”. Let’s count the reasons why:

https://twitter.com/FinancialTimes/status/1303265154419904512

1. Let’s start with the overly simplistic premise of the whole analysis, the alleged “Dash for Gas”. @FT should have just asked @ntsafos to turn this tweet thread👇 into an opinion, because what its team produced falls into the “neat, simple, and mostly wrong” category

https://twitter.com/ntsafos/status/1296091111216287745

2. The description of the situation in the #Aegean is thoroughly disingenuous. “The Turkish coastline is dotted with Greek islands”? How about the Aegean is dotted with Greek islands? And is not simply a matter of Greece believing that these islands have territorial rights,

international law stipulates that these islands in fact do have such rights. The omissions at this point are what make the piece disingenuous. Despite the reference to “a decades-long dispute”, the piece completely avoids any discussion over the last round of talks between Greece

and Turkey. The insinuation that Greece may be making maximalist claims is easily disproven if one has even the least bit of familiarity with where those talks left off — or by the fact that Greece agreed to pick the talks up from that point.

Greece has refrained from declaring maximal territorial waters in the Aegean or from producing maps making maximalist claims in the Aegean (something that Turkey regularly does).

3. Another key omission: why no mention of Greece committing to talks with Turkey as soon as its ships are withdrawn?

Only Turkey is resorting to gunboat diplomacy, threatening force & invasion, and alluding to genocide. The failure to point this out is inexcusable.

4. With regards to #Cyprus, this piece only reminds us all that all problems on the island started with the British.

The journalists involved reveal too much when they write “the government on the Greek Cypriot side”. It’s called “The Republic of Cyprus” —

a member of the European Union) and a member of the United Nations (even *before* the allegedly contentious entry into the EU).

On the other hand, here is the description of Turkey’s colony in the occupied northern third of Cyprus: “the Turkish Cypriot

self-declared state is not recognized by the international community”. In fact, it is not recognized by ANY country (save Turkey) or ANY international organization. Indeed, the establishment of this pseudo-state has been CONDEMNED by the UN Security Council.

So the maps treating maritime claims of an occupation regime as potentially legitimate are even worse than “rubbish” and a massive disservice to the @FT’s readers. There is absolutely NO basis whatsoever for such claims.

5. Turkey is portrayed as legitimately relying on international law (a 1982 ruling in a dispute between Libya and Tunisia) with the complication of “its refusal to sign the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea”.

Bollocks. Turkey has an a la carte approach to international law

Turkey ignores UNCLOS, refuses to recognize the Republic of Cyprus (while simultaneously claiming the “guarantor” status that was established by one of the Republic’s founding documents), and ignores UN Security Council resolutions.

It has long refused to submit to the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice in this maritime dispute — farcically claiming that neighbors should not take each other to court and that “dialogue” is a Greek word.

And Turkey’s approach to maritime law — whether it is making claims for its colony in the northern part of Cyprus or in establishing fictitious maritime borders with Libya — are deserving of an award in the fantasy genre (@nytimes alluded to “Game of Thrones” in its analysis)

6. @FT completely whiffs by allowing its team to link tensions between Turkey and Egypt, Turkey and Israel solely to gas (and to some extent Libya).

The truth is that Turkey seeks regional hegemony, and has been doing so for a while now.

Unfortunately many in the West encouraged that aspiration, especially after the Arab Uprisings. When Erdogan went after Shimon Peres at Davos, it had nothing to do with gas. Neither does his relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and his sheltering of Hamas.

Turkey — not only Erdogan, since the “Blue Homeland” doctrine (a discussion of which was also curiously omitted by the @FT) was formulated by a non-AKP member of the military — seems to believe that it plays the role of China in the region,

with the Eastern Med as its South China Sea and the Aegean as its East China Sea.

The region has decisively rejected that type of regional order. The Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum presents an alternative, where countries nobody would have expected to collaborate actually do.

In another omission (!) @FT fails to note that the Forum made it clear that it was open to Turkey’s participation/membership, as long as Ankara was willing to play by the rules the rest of the group had reached consensus on.

Turkey has gone from a “zero problems with neighbors” foreign policy to a “zero neighbors without which it has problems” status. Such “rubbish” analyses convinces Ankara that enough Western policy makers may buy into its views that they unwitting encourage Turkey’s intransigence

@FT should solicit a more comprehensive and honest analysis on the Eastern Mediterranean. Letting this piece stand as the paper’s definitive contribution to the consideration of this emerging crisis is so irresponsible it would make even make Boris Johnson the journalist blush.

Boy, when I said “the journalists involved reveal too much” I wasn’t yet thinking of the bias of the editor who came up with the rubbish video