“Multiculturalism is dead,” German chancellor Angela Merkel declared on October 16, 2010, in a speech addressing her fellow Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party members.
“You got the beaches, we got the sea,” is Greece’s underlying stance in terms of its rights in the Aegean. That would be the stance of any government if it were to rely on international maritime law. No doubt, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) stipulates that islands have the same maritime jurisdiction zones as the mainland.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu’s choice to use the words “honest broker and the EU” in the same sentence during a July 7 press conference with Josep Borrell, the 27-nation bloc’s high representative, represented a clear break with Turkey’s decades-old policies.
The natural gas reserves in the eastern Mediterranean are estimated to total around 3 percent of global reserves.
It is surprising to see how Turkey’s presence in Africa and growing role in the Middle East is met by questions like “What is Turkey doing in Africa?” For those asking this question, the British, French or Belgian presence on the continent is a given. Are they justifying this presence by the European colonial past? If that is enough justification, do they have to be reminded of the 500 years of Ottoman rule on the continent?
Start like a Turk, finish like a German, is a saying that even Turkey’s current envoy to Prague, Egemen Bağış, used once in describing the country’s accession process to the European Union when he served as the minister for EU affairs.
The maritime delimitation problem in the Aegean between Turkey and Greece has currently been transferred to the Eastern Mediterranean. Lying at the heart of the problem are hydrocarbon discoveries in the Mediterranean since the early 2000s, as well as the Cyprus dispute. Initial discoveries of natural gas around Israel and Egypt were followed by similar ones around Cyprus.
Turkey and France have been at odds on geopolitical issues pertaining to the Mediterranean region. The two governments are not on the same page in Syria and Libya.
When the young pianist Büşka Kayıkçı qualified this week to be among the young musicians to perform during the Istanbul Jazz Festival, she received both praise and disapproval on social media. Her headscarf drew criticism both from seculars and the pious. Paradoxically, these two segments were unified in their incomprehension of a Muslim women performing a music style which is attributed to the (Christian) West. Had a pious, or conservative man been qualified, we would not have had this discussion, since we would not have known this person’s social or political leanings.
