It has been revealed that Turkey has drawn up plans for a possible invasion of Greece and Armenia. The plan to invade Greece dates back to 2014 and is named after 11th century Turkish military leader Çaka Bey who fought the Byzantine Empire and founded the Turkish navy.
The plans were revealed by news portal Nordic Monitor who oversee global developments related to military and security matters, as well as matters relating to terrorism. They claim that, the top secret documents, that take the form of a power-point presentation, were delivered to the General Staff of the Turkish military for an internal planning review.
The documents seemed to have leaked from a court-case in Turkey in which the document provider forgot to censor or remove the plans for invasion.
Titled, "TSK Çakabey Harekât Planlama Direktifi" (Turkish Armed Forces Çakabey Operation Planning Directive), the document is dated 13th June 2014, and the presumption made by Nordic Monitor is that the plans are still active. Further plans dating from 2000 also outline a planned invasion of Armenia, on Turkey's North-Eastern border.
Turkey and Greece have had long-running disputes and a history of military conflict. The Ottoman Empire, based in Turkey, controlled Greece for hundreds of years until the 1821 rebellion obtained independence for Greece. The two countries also had large scale population exchanges in the early 20th century with Turks living in Greece sent to Turkey, and Greeks living in Turkey being forced to either convert to Islam or move to Greece. The most recent armed conflict occurred in 1974 when Turkey invaded Cyprus, then a part of the Greek state. To this day, Turkey occupies the north of the island.
Tensions have remained high with territorial claims and disputes over islands in the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas being a primary source of disagreements. Increasingly, the Turkish state has escalated calls that islands including Crete, Rhodes and Lesbos belong to Turkey and, recently, Greece has objected to Turkish plans for drilling for natural gas in 24 locations in the Mediterranean that are Greek territory. Greece's Foreign Minister, Nikos Dendias, has warned that Athens would retaliate if the drilling were to begin.
Tensions were further escalated when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan outlined plans to turn the Hagia Sophia, a large museum and former Christian Greek Orthodox church in Istanbul (Constantinople), into a mosque. Again, the Greek government vented their fury, saying:
"Any questioning of this status is not just an insult to the sentiments of Christians, it is an insult to the international community and international law."
The relationship between Turkey and Armenia is even more brutal. During World War I, the Turks murdered 1.5 million Armenians in a genocide. Despite the UN declaring it a war crime, the Turkish state, to this day, refuses to acknowledge its responsibility. In both the First and Second World Wars, the Turks sided with the Germans, first under the Kaiser and then under Hitler.
The refugee crisis is also being weaponised by Turkey, who have opened their border to allow tens-of-thousands of Syrian refugees to cross into Greece, many of whom are seeking to reach other parts of Europe. The act, in the midst of the coronavirus crisis which Greece has brilliantly contained, can be seen as a form of asymmetric warfare. In many cases, Turkish buses ordered by the government are reaching the Greek border filled with refugees.
This same tactic was used in 2016 when Erdoğan threatened to open the borders for migrants when the EU put a halt to discussions of Turkey entering the trade-block.
The Erdoğan regime has come under harsh criticism for dictatorial powers, the crushing of dissent, and the nullifying of democracy. The right-wing Islamist does indeed appear to be on a path to destroying the Turkish state's founding principles of secularism and political freedoms.
The fact that Turkey would plan to invade Armenia, never mind invading mainland Europe and the home of Western civilisation should be a wake-up call for us all. While both Greece and Turkey are NATO members, it can't be imagined that any Western state would side with Turkey in its aggression against a European ally, and such a move would surely turn Turkey into a pariah state overnight.
While some have worried about outright war, these tensions were played down by Paul Antonopoulos, an expert on Turkish-Greek relations, who said:
"Since Greece won its independence from the Ottoman Empire, there have been four major wars between the Greeks and Turks, with Greece always being the one to first declare the war. Athens has already said it does not want war but will only respond to Turkish-initiated aggression … It is unlikely that Erdogan will declare war, especially as Turkey is militarily over-extended in Syria and Libya and is facing an economic crisis."
It is hoped that the Turkish President gets the message that Europe is not for compromise on its territory or in its values.
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