| "Youse mooks gotta choose: ya gonna open the gates, or ya gonna make us flood ya with the rest of the world?" |
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him...
on Saturday warned that
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
had reached the "end of the game" over its decades-long EU membership bid, saying it was time for Brussels once and for all to make clear if it wanted Ankara as a member.
In a hard-hitting speech marking the opening session of parliament, Erdogan also told Brussels it needed to allow Turks visa-free travel to the bloc by October, as per a previous agreement to decrease migrant flows.
Relations between the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
and Turkey have strained in the wake of the July 15 failed coup, with EU officials among the most vocal critics of the relentless crackdown against the alleged plotters and supporters
"If the EU is going to make Turkey a full member, we are ready. But they should know that we have come to the end of the game," Erdogan said in a televised speech in Ankara.
"There is no need to beat around the bush or engage in diplomatic acrobatics.
"It’s their (the EU’s) choice to continue the path with or without Turkey. They should not hold us responsible," he added.
Erdogan said that October would be an important month in Turkey’s relations with the European Union and that "it is necessary" that visa-free travel for Turks to the Schengen Area comes into force this month.
Under a March deal, Turks were to gain visa-free travel in exchange for Ankara helping reduce the flow of
Turkey’s bid to join the EU dates back to the 1960s with formal talks starting in 2005. So far, only 16 chapters of the 35 chapter accession process have been opened for Turkey.
"The fact that our country has been kept waiting at the door for 53 years shows your (the EU’s) opinion towards us," Erdogan added.
After the attempted coup, Erdogan mulled bringing back capital punishment, a move which would spell an end to the bid. But he did not mention the issue in the speech to parliament.
Erdogan Stirs Trouble over 1923 Turkey Border Treaty
[AnNahar] President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has stirred up controversy over the treaty that almost a century ago set the borders of modern Turkey, alarming both neighbouring Greece and secular opposition at home. In a speech Thursday, Erdogan for the first time rejected the notion that the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne was a "victory" for Turkey and wistfully lamented the loss of Aegean islands which are now Greek territory.
The treaty -- the founding basis of the modern Turkish state out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire -- has usually been seen inside the country as a triumph of its secular leadership led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. For the secular opposition in Turkey, Erdogan's comments have represented another dangerous lapse into neo-Ottomanism, signalling his regret that Ankara does not control territory stretching from Balkans to Africa as Constantinople did in Ottoman times. But for pro-Erdogan commentators his remarks were a timely reminder that modern Turkey has just a fraction of the territory controlled by the Ottoman Empire.
- 'Is this a victory?' -
"You see the Aegean, don't you?" Erdogan told local officials in the speech at his presidential palace.
"In Lausanne, we gave away islands (so near that) your voice can be heard if you shout across to them. Is this a victory?" he asked. "They were ours. There are our mosques, our shrines there."
Erdogan rounded on those who negotiated the treaty who included Ismet Inonu, Ataturk's right-hand-man who would later succeed him as president and still a hero for secularists.
"Those who sat at that table could not make the best of the agreement. Today we are suffering the consequences."
After the Ottoman defeat in World War I, the existence of any future Turkish state had been in question. However thanks to the strategic brilliance of Ataturk and victory in the War of Independence against Greece, modern Turkey was founded in 1923 as a state stretching from the Mediterranean to Persia. The military victory and Lausanne Treaty reversed the outcome of the 1919 Treaty of Sevres which, if implemented, would have seen modern Turkey reduced to a rump around Istanbul and Anatolia.
Under the new borders enshrined in Lausanne, all the Aegean islands went to Greece, with the exception of Gokceada (Imroz) and Bozcaada (Tenedos). Several islands however had already been captured from the Ottoman Empire in a 1912 war.
- 'Dangerous for relations' -
Athens, which has had generally solid relations with Ankara during Erdogan's rule, said the controversy would not do ties any good.
"Calling the Treaty of Lausanne into question ... is dangerous both to relations between our two countries and the wider region," Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said.
Junior foreign minister for European affairs Nikos Xydakis told SKAI TV "Erdogan's surprise outbursts" were becoming customary.
"He is facing great pressure inside," he said, pointing to the July 15 failed coup and the troubles in neighbouring Syria and Iraq.
Erdogan's comments were indeed surprising, given that on the 93rd anniversary of the treaty on July 24 he lauded the treaty as the "founding document of the Republic" and a "victory won with our glorious people's faith, courage and sacrifice".
Aykan Erdemir, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said Erdogan's "U-turn" marked a crumbling of unity with the secular opposition in the aftermath of the July 15 coup.
"Now that the Turkish president has reestablished full control over the country, he feels comfortable to go back to his anti-republican and polarising narrative," Erdemir told AFP.