The expansionist and aggressive foreign policy adopted by Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean, demonstrated through its belligerent stance against its neighbours, including Greece, is not a sentiment shared by all Turkish pundits, as a recent article by political scientist and professor at the University of Newfoundland in Canada, Mehmet Efe Çaman illustrates.

The Turkish analyst directly criticises Tayyip Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman “Blue Homeland” plans in the Aegean Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean.

Çaman has lived in self-imposed exile for the past years, being prosecuted by the Erdogan government for alleged links to the Gulen network. In the past, Çaman also taught at the war academies of the Turkish Ministry of Defence and has a direct knowledge of the internal balances in the country.

In his latest article, published on the independent news portal www.tr724.com entitled: “What is the solution in the Eastern Mediterranean?”, Çaman points out that Ankara’s claims in the Greek seas have absolutely no legal basis, according to International Law and in international treaties such as Lausanne and Paris. He responds to the objections of his compatriots, for the presence of armed forces on the Greek islands after 1974, reminding his detractors that this was a Greek reaction to the invasion of Cyprus and the establishment of the Aegean Army on the coasts of Asia Minor.

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The sovereign rights of Greece in the Aegean islands are indisputable. What Turkey perceives as a problem is the proximity of some Greek islands to the coast of Anatolia. But that does not change the reality. Except for Imbros and Tenedos, the Pringiponisia and all the islands, isles and islets located at a distance of three miles from Anatolia, all the other islands, isles and islets belong to Greece. A coffee conversation of the type “But this too much” has no place in such discussions”.

A piece of land without an owner, whether it is continental of an island, is no different, they do not belong to you. Full stop! The concession of these islands to Greece was done through international treaties. It is not something that occurred yesterday. The Treaty of Lausanne was signed in 1923 and the islands remained in Greece. The Dodecanese belonged to Italy and when Italy lost the war after the Second World War, in the Treaty of Paris these islands passed over to Greece. Turkey did not object to this, nor was there any legal ground for such a thing. That is why Turkey did not even feel the need to send a delegation to Paris.”