EuroBillTracker

avij wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegean_dispute has quite a lot of material regarding these tensions..

Very interesting, thanks.

Turkish planes might be flying over Greece (or what you consider to be Greece, I don't know), but I really don't believe they would ever fire their weapons.

Believe me I know better than you what is considered Greece.I know the difference of FIR,national airspace and sea or land borders.They might fire,they might not.Can you assure me they won't?

If a fully armed russian plane flew over Turku, I would find it annoying, but not frightening.

I don't find it frightening too.But I wish someone to shot it down just for the respect!Of course this could cause a war,which nobody wants,so what I am saying is that instead of saying all the time "ok,nothing happened" we should say " if you are not a good neighbour,respecting us,as we do,you won't get what you want eg EU"

And about giving land to USSR.. I find it completely positive that Russians got Petroskoi (in Finnish it was "Äänislinna" for a short while), because it wasn't rightfully Finnish territory anyway. However, I'm very sad for the losses of Petsamo and Carelia, because they were originally Finnish.

We are not and we will never be willing to give a centimeter of our land earned with blood to anyone!Dodekanisa,were Karpathos and Rhodes are belonged to Italy till 1947 and was given to Greece.

These islands were placed under a demilitarization statute after the Second World War by the Treaty of peace with Italy (1947), when Italy ceded them to Greece. Italy had previously not been under any obligation towards Turkey in this respect. Turkey, in turn, was not a party to the 1947 treaty, having been neutral during WWII.
from avij link

I should remind you that Italy,Germany and Bulgaria occupied Greece during WW2.

The same applies to the Greek-Turkish border. I find it very odd that Greece owns the islands that are only a short distance away from Turkish mainland. I don't know about the history of those islands, but I can't believe they have "just always been" Greek. However, if they have been inhabitet solely by Greek people, I do understand the point of keeping them Greece.

Don't forget that turkish arrived in Minor Asia a few thousand years after us.There are ancient greek monuments in all our islands and of course in the Ionian coast were greeks chased by Kemal's genocide.The islands have "just always been Greece"!

But then again, you have yourself mentioned that the Turkish army had taken over an uninhabitet rock. If that's the case, then I don't really understand where the problem lies.

The problem is that turkish after the Imia incident started to dispute other areas such as Kalogeroi, Antipsara, Pontiko,Fournoi,Arkoi, Agathonisi,Pharmakonisi, Kalolimnos,Pserimos,Gyali,Kandheliousa,Sirina and of course Gavdos which is south of Crete!All these islands are populated with Greek (and EU) citizens! Read more about the legal status of Imiahere

Because the Turkish government says it's not Greek territory. The national sea space around a Greek island is 6 nautical miles, but for some reason the air space around the same island is 10 nautical miles. As far as I know, the national air space and sea space of a country are usually the same

The delimitation of national airspace claimed by Greece is exceptional, as it does not coincide with the boundary of the territorial waters. Greece claims 10 miles (18.5 km) of airspace, as opposed to 6 miles (11.1 km) of water. Since 1974, Turkey has refused to acknowledge the validity of those outer 4 miles (7.4 km) of airspace that extend beyond the Greek territorial waters. Turkey cites the statutes of the ICAO of 1948,[4] as containing a binding definition that both zones must coincide. Against this, Greece argues (1) that its 10-mile claim predates the ICAO statute, having been fixed in 1931, and that it was acknowledged by all its neighbours, including Turkey, before and after 1948, hence constituting an established right;[5],(2) that its 10-mile claim can also be interpreted as just a partial, selective use of the much wider rights guaranteed by the Law of the Sea, namely the right to a 12-mile (22.2 km) zone both in the air and on the water, and (3) that Greek territorial waters are only set at the 6 mile boundary because of Turkey's casus belli
from avij link

Latest details of the Karpathos incident are that the turkish pilot pulled a gun against the greek crew of SAR helicopter and the captain of the ship that rescued him.Greek crew inform the leadership,because apart for their lifes threatened,they were thinking that the pilot might commit suicide,which would cause troubles.Captain of the ship told that the turkish pilot was shaking and he was afraid to caught hostage by the Greeks.By the way the turkish planes were three,an RF4 and two armed F16 heading to Crete to take photos of the naval base in Suda.This is called espionage,isn't it?Greek planes were unarmed and went close for recognision.

Carelia should be Greek.Karelias is a greek cigarettes manufacturer.We will either take carelia or Finnish would take the company!There is a dispute!

turkey cannot enter in Europe simply because is occupying a state member of EUROPEAN COMMUNITY,Cyprus.

And they still don't recognize armenian genocide...

I believe there are a lot of things unsorted about the Armenian genocide. E.g. how many? Who was responsible? Turkey was in the middle of a civil war at the time, no wonder a lot of people were killed. But it's still not a proof that there was (or wasn't) a state-controlled genocide on the Armenian population.
On the other hand, Turkey's move to ban all research and to forbid the mentioning of the genocide should make us suspicious.

Turkey was very eager to get involved in Cyprus, but the (Greek) Cypriots gave them one of the best excuses possible. Tell me, if the Swiss would decide to descriminate against the Italian speaking population in Switzerland, if random killing happened to these Italian speaking Switzers, would you consider an occupation by Italy totally wrong? Illegal, perhaps, but I would understand the Italians.
Cyprus had had several racial riots between Greek and Turk Cypriots. With dead at both sides. Every side is to blame for that, not just the Turks.

troubles of borders for incoming goods in northern Cyprus,the talks about admittance of Tvrkey has been stopped few weeks ago...
i guess the trouble becomes harder to be managed.
i am not an expert of international law but how should be managed a case like this?a subject asks to enter to a club having conflicts w a member of the club.

Agreed. Before admittance, the conflict must be resolved. But again, that's not only a responsability of Turkey, but also of Cyprus (and perhaps even Greece?)

yes but Cyprus and Greece are already members so its difficult

There will be a lott of pressure of the EU and other member states to come to an agreement. Even if it doesn't imply a Turkish membership, a border dispute is not a good thing in Europe, we're very keen on stability

maybe we can think on a sort of partnership.

Recently, I'm thinking about something like this more and more. But it has to be mutually beneficial, or Turkey will feel very unhappy, and with reason. Not easy to think of such a partnership.

They are already in NATO,so we are already partners.
economically we have2consider the trade off of putting into the system,so weak 4 competitivity,goods so cheap and having workers already 'in use' in the system as not UE manpower.
but have a look on
www.arivatanen.com what he says about it.
ps groentje,my friend,when i have time i send u another card...stamps cost more now!0.65 pr. abroad.and ordinary is no more avilable 4 in and out italy

Thanks. I'll do the same. Have some new stamps of Mozart for it.
And an interesting link you gave. He's clearly pro-Turkish membership.
I'm too, although it's not a fetish of me, anymore. A good economical partnership (NATO is defensive partnership) with conditions can give Turkey a good status aparte to the EU. Or a full membership, of course, but still a lot of water will run to the sea before Turkey AND the EU are ready.

maybe we need to build up our identity before and economics etc...will follow.

http://www.yale.edu/eustudies/Cyprus_Co ... vvides.pdf

maybe we can use this document as a waypoint for the discussion