Talk:Greece–Turkey relations/Archive 2

message: Since I have written a new article here I have also archived the old Talk to prevent any further arguments. Adam 13:22, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: Of course there was persecution but that is not the same as a "holocaust" or "genocide" in which whole populations are killed. These are exaggerations and are not used outside Greece as far as I can tell, nor should they be. Adam 14:36, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: But it is very dangerous to marginalize organised persecution (historic proof exists that it was a premediated action) where thousands were killed. The names do belong in the article. Do not forget a major reason Smyrna was assigned to Greece in Sèvres was to protect its native Greek population from further persecution. — Jor (Talk) 15:39, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: holocaust/genocide

message: Why Adam should the greek part apologise for the enosis? Have you ever heard any state to apologise for anything? Has Britain apologised for the occupation of the island or Turkey for the invasion? Why do you call it vandalism? The states are looking for their interests. Do you think that the balkan christianity should apologise for the balkan wars? By the chance, ottoman empire never apologised for the fell of Constantinopole. Do you think this is serious way to discuss history? 
I can agree with you that nationalism in balkans is a stupid thing for two reasons. A) We have lived together for centuries and we have many common things. We are cousins in some sense. B)This enormous area is geografically and economically a unity. People could live together inside the border of a federal state. This was the dream of Rigas. Unfortunately, we (the balkan nations) are not mature enough to solve our problems peacefully and cooperate. That's why we need USA and Britain to play the role of justice (according their own interests of course) or an australian guy to learn us our history.
Nationalism in balkans has caused many damages and it still does. See Kossovo now. It is bloody stupid. But do you think that adopting the Turkish POV is not the better way to fight against the balkan nationalism? Have you heard the Turkish demands on Aegean islands and their stupid reasoning: "you greeks have two many islands, give us some" or "some of your islands are very close to our coast, give them to us". The article mentions it somewhere. You did not correct it. HERAKLES
I have no idea what this is all about. I never said that anyone should apologise for anything. I am not interested in cheap sarcasm or stupid exaggerations and misrepresentations of what I said. When you can get over your petty political prejudices and say something sensible I will talk to you. Katalaveneis? Adam 07:28, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: HERAKLES' comments

message: Dear Ato:
*Treaty of Sevres: The treaty was a valid treaty under international law, signed by the internationally recognised government of the Sultan. Your description of Kemal's government as "the true Turkish government" is a political opinion, not a legal fact. Of course the treaty was imposed on the Sultan, because the Ottoman Empire had just lost a war. That doesn't mean it wasn't a legal treaty.
*"Capture" is a completely neutral term. The Greeks held the city, the Turks captured it. That doesn't contain any opinion about who the city legally belonged to. Actually, under the Treaty of Sevres, it belonged to Greece, but my sentence doesn't imply that.
*The massacre at Smyrna/Izmir was a massacre of civilians (accompanied, by the way, by mass rape of Greek women, which I haven't mentioned) carried out by the Kemalist army. This is a historical fact and cannot be deleted for political reasons. It was not done with the approval of the Kemalist government, and the article says that. But it did happen.
*I am not aware of any comparable massacres of Turkish civilians by the Greek army. If they took place, they should be included. Please provide examples and sources if possible (preferably sources in English).
*Greek disloyalty: You are right that the Ottoman Empire was traditionally a multi-ethnic empire where Greeks and Turks etc lived together. However this began to change under Enver, who tried to make the empire a centralised Turkish-national state. Non-Turks found it increasingly hard to give loyalty to this state, and certainly Greeks were "disloyal" during the Greco-Turkish war. (Just as Turkish Cypriots were "disloyal" to the Cypriot government). Certainly we should say more about this.
*The reference to the Armenian Genocide was intended for comparison, to make the point that the massacre at Smyra was not done as government policy. It could probably be deleted.
*By the way, I am neither Greek nor Turkish, I have been to both countries and here in multicultual Melbourne I have friends in both communities. My only interest here is writing accurate history. I appreciate your point of view but nationalist POV on any kind will be deleted from the article.
Adam 04:29, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Adam replies

message: Dear Adam,
I appreciate your comments. Here is my further comments. I hope other people will join us. I am very hopeful that we will improve this article together.
* The treaty of Sevres: This treaty is not valid. It was signed by a representative of Sultan, but the constitution of Ottoman Empire requires the parliament (Meclis-i Mebusan) to ratify any international treaty. This was never done as the parliament stopped its function and left Istanbul on March 18th 1920 upon its invasion by the Allies. Some members of the parliment later formed part of the new parliament of new Republic of Turkey which promptly declared the treaty invalid and dismissed the Sultan as the head of state. Sultan had no authority to enter such a treaty by himself. His authority was recognized by the Allies only because he was in a position to be forced to accept the terms of the treaty. According to "Turk Dis Politikasi (Turkish Foreign Policy)", ed. Baskin Oran, Iletisim Yayincilik, 2001, Istanbul, p.137 "Except for Greece, the Allies did not ratify [the treaty] as the events developed too quickly." See also, Heimleich ("From Paris to Sevres") and Hughes & Seligmann ("Does peace lead to war?"), on why this was a treaty that was DOA.
* You have written: "Actually, under the Treaty of Sevres, it belonged to Greece...". This is not true and also not very relevant. As you must know, the landing of Greek army in Izmir precedes the signing of Sevres. More importantly, Sevres treaty does not give the region of Izmir to Greece, however it obviously prepares this transfer in five years time. I am not fanatic about "capture" I take your word for its neutrality. I plan to write about the landing of Greek army in Izmir anyways, and then it would become clear that the Turks were in control before that.
* As far as I know, the massacre in Izmir, was not carried out by the Kemalist army. However the army did not take action to prevent hostilities. They should have done that of course. My opinion on removing this reference still stands, please see below, for more on this POV.
* It is not hard to find references to massacres carried out by both Greek army and Greek civilians (citizens of Ottoman Empire). I have spent two hours in the university library today and found various references, which contain communications of British and Americans, hence cannot be disregarded as made-up facts by Turks. However, I will not write these references here. If you want to learn about them email me, and I will send you the names of the books with page numbers etc. Anybody who is doing a serious research about Greaco-Turkish relations can find these references easily. I do not want these records to be the defining point of the relations between the nations of Turkey and Greece. I would much rather look like someone who cannot back up his claims, than someone who supports and feeds hostility between these two nations. I think we should not add the records of these events and remove the reference to massacre in Izmir.
* The name of the city Smyrna/Izmir is İzmir. I have just checked the map included in the treaty of Sevres, and the city is referred as "Izmir (Smyrna)". Of course in the wording of the treaty, it is referred as simply Smyrna. This is because the treaty is worded by the British and the Greeks. I do not know if this has any basis but, using Greek names for Turkish cities is perceived as persuasion of Megali Idea by Turkish people. As the city was evidently called Izmir at the time of the events referred to in the article, in my opinion, İzmir (Greek name: Smyrna) is more appropiate than Smyrna (now İzmir). It was İzmir "then", not only "now".
* The policies of Enver, and ideology of "Young Turks", I think, belongs to article for "Ottoman Empire". I will put this on my to do list, then we can refer to that article for this issue. I agree with you that the times were getting harder for minorities in Ottoman Empire, but simply stating this and neglecting the role of interventions by European states to internal affairs, which lead to the nationalistic ideologies, might do more harm then good.
* If I had sounded like accusing you of taking sides, please accept my apologies. I did not mean that. I am certainly not trying to rewrite history, or imposing my POV on anybody. However, I would gladly sacrifice accuracy to skip the hostilities and give more weight to positive aspects of Greaco-Turkish relations.
Ato 2004-April-20, 00:54, Chicago
----
 
Dear Ato
*Treaty of Sevres: If what you say about Ottoman law is correct, then the point you make about the Treaty a good one. I assumed that the Sultan had the power to sign treaties on his own. You are also correct that the Greeks occupied Symrna/Izmir in 1919 before the Treaty was ratified. These points should be mentioned in the article, although they really belong in Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922).
*Smyrna and Izmir: As far as I know cities did not have "official" names before the 19th century. Even Constantinople was not officially named Istanbul until Ataturk's time. Greeks called the city Smyrna and Turks called it Izmir. My rule is to call places by whatever name the people who lived there at the time called it, and so far as I know the city had a Greek majority before 1922. But this is not a major point. I am quite happy to say "Izmir, then called Smyrna by its Greek inhabitants."
*Izmir/Smyrna massacre: There was a massacre and we should say that there was. If it was not carried out by the Kemalist army, who was it carried out by? I have a reference on this somewhere which I will check.
:: I am planning a longer reply, but I did not want to leave a direct question unanswered for long. I believe it was done by the Turkish inhabitants of Izmir. There was already a resistance against the Greek army, once they left, the hatred turned onto the Greek civilians. Ato
*Massacres of Turks by Greeks: Rather than sending me references to books I won't have time to read, why don't you write a paragraph or two giving some examples and post it here for discussion? I trust you to use your sources correctly.
*General: It is not the purpose of an encyclopaedia article to foster good relations between Greeks and Turks. It is our job to write what happened. If we do this in a calm and objective way then most people will not be offended.
** i agree that our job is to write what happened, to be as acccurate and clear as possible, and that the fostering of good relations between, e.g. Greeks and Turks, is not a consensed-on goal of wikipedia. However, IMHO, writing in a calm, objective and unambiguous way often does offend people. People used to using euphemisms and holding in anger and frustration from life events and used to responding in certain ways often are offended, or at least talk that way - at least in the short term - when they are confronted with less ambiguous, more accurate descriptions of facts. Of course, IMHO, in the long term, the effect of this will be to foster the constructive resolution of conflicts and hence good relations between social groups, e.g. Greeks and Turks. This is independent of whether or not it's a conscious goal, and is probably better not to be a goal (except for maybe very exceptional circumstances, none of which i can think of right now). Boud 15:18, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Ato replies

message: Doesnt the capture of Ocalan in Greek embassy in Nairobi deserve a mention as a recent significant event?
See for instance: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/281322.stm
--Olympos 03:13, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ocalan's capture and Greek-Turkish Relations 

message: Looking at the edit conflict that's been going on, I'm not terribly impressed with either version. The claim that Greeks in Turkey were "generally disloyal" seems to be POV unless some support can be provided for it.  It is a rather tremendous claim.  Furthermore, many of the "Greeks" who were forced out of Turkey in the aftermath of World War I were not even exactly Greeks - they were Turkish-speaking Christians (and, of course, Greek-speaking Muslims were expelled to Turkey).  This should at least be mentioned, shouldn't it? john k 19:01, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Loyalty of "Greeks" in Turkey 

message: Looking at the edit conflict that's been going on, I'm not terribly impressed with either version. The claim that Greeks in Turkey were "generally disloyal" seems to be POV unless some support can be provided for it.  It is a rather tremendous claim.  Furthermore, many of the "Greeks" who were forced out of Turkey in the aftermath of World War I were not even exactly Greeks - they were Turkish-speaking Christians (and, of course, Greek-speaking Muslims were expelled to Turkey).  This should at least be mentioned, shouldn't it? john k 19:01, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I am not Turkish. I lived in Turkey during an Enginnering Post in the GAP procject at SE Turkey. I know little about the whole discussion, I know one thing that both sides were demonising each other at a point. There is room for improvement all the time. I am a mediator as long as you guys want me around. I am fair, just try me before disposing me :). I think we should reexamine this article...  Cat chi? 03:19, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

text: Given the edits on Kurdish related pages, and Armenian Genocide related pages, combined with the non-native use of English, your assumption was entirely reasonable. Jayjg (talk) 06:16, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Loyalty of "Greeks" in Turkey 

message: I want to experiment here. Since the discussion is in a more civil tone there isnt a too terible need for mediation. I can be a mediator, give me a try. Just try me. I am re adding the template. You should not toss your parfiume before trying it. Misguided people who do not want my mediation due to the discussion in Armenian Genocide before a discussion starts here is not right. Kapla!  Cat chi? 01:12, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Mediation

message: For example Istanbul/Constantinapole or Thessaloniki/Selanik. This is how we did it in engineering projects involving both countries.  Cat chi? 07:02, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: <span style="color:blue;">Usage of Greek words to refer to cities will ofend Turks and usage of Turkish words will offend Greeks. Usage of Turkish/Greek names of cities when refering to cities in Turkey and Greek/Turkish when refering to cities in greece sounds fair.</span>

message: "Today, the Greek-Turkish dispute over the Aegean sea evolves around four distinct, yet mutually related issues: 1) Sovereignity of the Aegean sea 2) Claims of territorial waters limits within the Aegean Sea, by each side 3) Jurisdiction over airspace zones 4) Sovereignty over unspecified (gray areas) Aegean islands. This last issue arose after the Imia (Greek) / Kardak (Turkish) crisis, which brought the two countries one step away from war."
"Today, the Greek-Turkish dispute over the Aegean sea evolves around four distinct, yet mutually related issues: 
#Sovereignity of the Aegean sea
#Claims of territorial waters limits within the Aegean Sea, by each side
#Jurisdiction over airspace zones
#Sovereignty over unspecified (gray areas) Aegean islands. This last issue arose after the Imia (Greek) / Kardak (Turkish) crisis, which brought the two countries one step away from war."
::I prefer refering the relation ship of two countries as a mini cold war. I dont know if that is aproporate for an article of this nature.  Cat chi? 07:13, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: <span style="color:blue;">Reformat the folowing as:</span>

message: No mention of it, it was a big thing on media coverage. At this time I was in Turkey.  Cat chi? 07:25, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: <span style="color:blue;">S-300 Crisis</span>

message: This talk page was in black & white -- for a while, at least. — Davenbelle 09:39, Apr 1, 2005 (UTC) 
:The color of this discussion is based on any and all parties want to discuss it. Your edit of what I posted is not welcome. Instead of opposing my color scheme why not talk about the article, if you do not want to do that why are you here? Do not edit my posts ever again.  Cat chi? 00:41, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kewl Kolours