Turkish provocations against Greece, 21 years after the Imia incident

[Maiar93]

The tactic of the turkish military is basically to swarm a target with as many numbers as possible. The seaworthiness we are talking about here is not too relevant, because these ships won't have to carry the troops or equipment for a huge distance. Some distances from the minor asian coast to an island are no more than 10-12 km. Don't forget that even cheap rubber boats carrying "refugees" from the minor asian coast to Greek islands can make that distance. So, these ships don't really have to be at peak performance to do their job.
In fact, they could easily be used to draw attention and forces (navy, air force, etc) on one area, while the more modern ships can land on another area. Never underestimate numbers, they are the chief weapon of Turkey.

PS, actually, many of the ships are not old or non seaworthy at all, as they were launched after 2006. Please see below for more information.

True, they still have capacity to invade islands. However, it's not much of a capacity, and as you said it might just be one or two islands that they can capture. This is why it seems to me that Turkey's bigger goal is to simply threaten Greece, maybe provoke something, because they don't have capacity for a long war, but they do have capacity for small skirmishing and an island battle or two. But also consider that if they DO invade an island, it would probably come at a large cost to Turkey. Will be hard to paint that as a victory to the people, which means Turkey would have to pay a large political cost for any military aggression both internally and to the international community.

[PointOfViewGun]

I wouldnt say my posts are the ones which are pathetic, but regardless I'm not referring to you - I made it quite clear I dont consider you a part of this discussion, and that hasnt changed. Keep posting all the nonsense you like, the reasonable response to someone who will literally pretend his opinion weighs heavier than that of international legal scholarship on an issue concerning the content of international law is to ignore him.

Ioannis claims have already been backed up, but of course you're free to ignore any facts which are inconvenient to you. And that question of yours, well at least I have it confirmed you didnt read my posts. Everytime you've been asked for a source in this thread you made excuses essentially like "I dont have to back this up because it's "common sense" (re: bull you've just made up to pretend like you've got any worthwhile point to make).

Anyway carry on, it's quite amusing seeing how deep a hole you're willing to dig for yourself.

You make a comment on asking about sources after I quote your post and ask what do you base your info on, but yes, you made it quite clear you don't consider me a part of this discussion... That's pathetic. Just because I didn't bother to source one basic idea doesn't mean I didn't use any sources anywhere. It's pathetic to disrupt what people argue like that. The fact remains is that you're shying away from responding to simple questions (ie. post #112). I'm not the one digging a hole here.

Phalangitis and Hmmm, it is as you say. The issue is to expose Turkey's lies and propaganda to the people who don't know what is going on and are casual viewers. So, what I write here is not so much for Setekh, who I believe knows what is going on but will definitely not admit it, but for the neutral people who don't know the situation. That is the reason why I try to keep the thread alive and Setekh is being very helpful in this respect, always coming up with more arguments for his position.
So originally we had the S-300 "threat" (I am not sure if Setekh himself said that, the turkish side definitely did), then that was dropped, and then we came to the meat of it, with the Aegean Army of Turkey having the second amphibious landing craft in NATO.
And then the other side really let loose of the "arguments":
-The landing craft are old. (but it was proved that at least one line of landing craft was produced in 2010-11)
-The Netherlands, Italy and Spain also have landing craft. (Yes they do, but not so many of them, and certainly the Netherlands and Spain never threatened Greece to take over Greek islands. OK, Italy attacked Greece but that hasn't happened since Mussolini, I think we can be pretty safe that it's not going to happen again).

Your position is really not standing on strong ground with all the failed claims and points you ignored.
I said Turkey has a lot of cold war era landing crafts. I didn't say they were all old. You managed to find one line of ships numbering at 8 that was built in the last decade. When were the others build? What is their capability? Speed? Displacement?
Last time Turkey attacked Greece was over a century ago. It was in fact Greece that tried to invade Anatolia. Later, they participated in the attempted ethnic cleansing of Cyprus from Turkish minority. Can I use these as arguments for a possible future Greek aggression against Turkey?
Netherlands and Spain not threatening Greece is a stupid and illogical point. It has no relevance. Function of the ships they have are not dependent on whether they threaten Greece or not. I'ms till waiting why other NATO allies can have such ships?
You've yet to explain to us why Turkey building an amphibious capability similar to that of Netherlands is of issue here...

And now we came to the real DIAMOND in the discussion:
I said this:
And incredibly, Setekh's response was this:
I quote it again:
Not what we're discussing here.
Yes, it's quite obvious isn't it? In a thread titled "Turkish provocations against Greece, 21 years after the Imia incident", the topic of discussion is NOT the amphibious capabilities of Turkey particularly in relation to landing craft, nor is it the turkish provocations against Greece (duh, why would anyone think THAT?) but it's the Dutch fleet, and did you know that the Dutch had the first stealth ship, "The Flying Dutch", and that the Netherlands is smaller than Turkey?

As I said, you're trying to conflate a bunch of issues to create something you can defend against. Yes, we're not discussing a lot of issues you mentioned earlier in that line of discussion; the casus belli on Greece unilaterally expanding its territorial waters, Turkey somehow threatening USA with war, or the EU with a refugee flood. You simply tried to conflate a bunch of issues to basically demonize Turkey overall. The topic of the thread is not why you don't like Turkey in general.

And of course, the other diamond, that "threats" are not one sided, without, of course showing us one instance from the near past when Greece, by means of a Prime Minister, for example, threatened Turkey. Derailing the topic, taking stuff right out of their heads, and even, in the case of Nebaki, just repeating the threats to Greece, by showing comparisons of numbers of military hardware between Greece and Turkey (ie, "we have moar Dakka, we win"), instead of arguments.

Do you need sources on Greek commandos marching in the streets of Athens chanting “Our dream is to enter Constantinople, raise our flag and sing our national anthem", or perhaps a source on Greek defense minister threatening Turkey with an accident on Aegean airspace? By the way, inline with your examples, wasn't it not long ago when the same defense minister threatened EU with sending in refugees? You may not like it but we live in a region where threats are made easily. Yet, these doesn't mean that they're legitimately actionable threats. They make good material for the kind of hysteria you're trying to fuel though.

[Hmmm]

You make a comment on asking about sources after I quote your post and ask what do you base your info on, but yes, you made it quite clear you don't consider me a part of this discussion... That's pathetic. Just because I didn't bother to source one basic idea doesn't mean I didn't use any sources anywhere. It's pathetic to disrupt what people argue like that. The fact remains is that you're shying away from responding to simple questions (ie. post #112). I'm not the one digging a hole here.

The comment was directed at Nebaki, who claimed the S-300 can be used "offensively" and failed to support the statement, then started criticising Ioannis for his sources with this statement (emphasis added by me):

Setekh did you noticed that most of ships are even not have an Source from Wikipedia ? Maybe ioannis76 should stop spam bs.

BTW:https://turkishnavy.net/

This is quite obvious and I would have expected you to understand it. How do I start the post? "One side dropped the S-300 are offensive schtick", which can only describe Nebaki since you didnt say anything about the S-300 (and to make it even more obvious I made it clear I dont consider you a part of the discussion). And how do I start my comment on it being rich to ask for sources? By writing "Additionally...", i.e. I'm still commenting on the behaviour of the same person who made the statement about the S-300, that is to say Nebaki in the above quote.

Your questions were answered in detail and you can easily go back and check for yourself. Throughout the thread you have failed to support your statements with sources, even when faced with unequivocal evidence proving you wrong. Just because you're used to making things up and expecting people to go along with it, and dont know how to react to being slapped with sources proving you definitiviely wrong (other than to declare yourself the foremost authority in international law apparently) doesnt mean everyone else has to let you lower the standards of conversation. The fact that your posting standards have been commented on by multiple posters who have no connection to one another should clue you in.

Keep digging, you're bound to come up on the other side at some point, eh?

True, they still have capacity to invade islands. However, it's not much of a capacity, and as you said it might just be one or two islands that they can capture. This is why it seems to me that Turkey's bigger goal is to simply threaten Greece, maybe provoke something, because they don't have capacity for a long war, but they do have capacity for small skirmishing and an island battle or two. But also consider that if they DO invade an island, it would probably come at a large cost to Turkey. Will be hard to paint that as a victory to the people, which means Turkey would have to pay a large political cost for any military aggression both internally and to the international community.

Even a threat to one or two islands is considerable enough to be cause for concern though, isnt it? For Greece the issue is to deter aggression from their neighbour, and the only way to do that is maintain a credible defense and remain vigilant by monitoring what Turkey does.

[PointOfViewGun]

The comment was directed at Nebaki, who claimed the S-300 can be used "offensively" and failed to support the statement, then started criticising Ioannis for his sources with this statement (emphasis added by me):

This is quite obvious and I would have expected you to understand it. How do I start the post? "One side dropped the S-300 are offensive schtick", which can only describe Nebaki since you didnt say anything about the S-300 (and to make it even more obvious I made it clear I dont consider you a part of the discussion). And how do I start my comment on it being rich to ask for sources? By writing "Additionally...", i.e. I'm still commenting on the behaviour of the same person who made the statement about the S-300, that is to say Nebaki in the above quote.


Your questions were answered in detail and you can easily go back and check for yourself. Throughout the thread you have failed to support your statements with sources, even when faced with unequivocal evidence proving you wrong. Just because you're used to making things up and expecting people to go along with it, and dont know how to react to being slapped with sources proving you definitiviely wrong (other than to declare yourself the foremost authority in international law apparently) doesnt mean everyone else has to let you lower the standards of conversation. The fact that your posting standards have been commented on by multiple posters who have no connection to one another should clue you in.

Keep digging, you're bound to come up on the other side at some point, eh?

Two people asked for sources, one from you, one from someone else. You posted right after my post without quoting anyone. If you wanted to ignore the question asked to you and comment on someone else's discussion you could have made it more clear.

My questions that I asked you but remains unanswered:

Turkey maintaining the second largest amphibious landing capability in NATO stationed right next to Greek islands? Based on what info?

Meanwhile, what claim of mine would you like me to source?

The simple question remains; can any nation demilitarize a region of its only and only against one or a group of other nations? How can a weapon be in a location against one nation and not be on that exact same spot against an other?

By the way, what definitive statements have I made? Can you quote them?

Please don't confuse dancing around these questions as answering them. If you answered them and I failed to see it please refer me to the post or posts where you answered them.

[Hmmm]

Two people asked for sources, one from you, one from someone else. You posted right after my post without quoting anyone. If you wanted to ignore the question asked to you and comment on someone else's discussion you could have made it more clear.

It was quite clear from the post itself, as I just explained. Besides there's quite literally no point in insisting on carrying on with this topic : you were "confused" as to whom I was referring, I clarified - twice. Do you need more clarification? That post was not directed at you.

Besides, seeing how you're not even a part of this conversation I dont see why I have to justify my wording to you.

My questions that I asked you but remains unanswered:

Please don't confuse dancing around these questions as answering them. If you answered them and I failed to see it please refer me to the post or posts where you answered them.

Go back and read the thread, you participated in it after all. None of your questions have been "danced around". Again, you can choose to stick your head in the sand and pretend that your questions werent answered, that's your prerogative. But dont expect me to waste my time on you. The only thing which is going to happen is I'm going to answer your questions, again, and you will pretend that didnt happen, again. At most I might decide to throw in even more sources, being how I'm an honest poster, and you'll fail to reciprocate and answer with some substance-less nonsense about it "not making sense" or about how I'm "changing the narrative" or some other garbage.

As I said, your behaviour has been commented on by a multitude of posters - many of whom haven't even participated in the discussion other than to specifically comment on your behaviour in this thread, so this clearly isnt just my opinion. It takes quite some posting standards on your part to elicit that reaction from uninvolved (in this thread) forum members. Case rested and closed.

[PointOfViewGun]

It was quite clear from the post itself, as I just explained. Besides there's quite literally no point in insisting on carrying on with this topic : you were "confused" as to whom I was referring, I clarified - twice. Do you need more clarification? That post was not directed at you. Is that sufficiently clear to you by now? I suppose not, given your track record in this thread.

Besides, seeing how you're not even a part of this conversation I dont see why I have to justify my wording to you.

I didn't ask for further clarification. I don't why you're still commenting on it.

Go back and read the thread, you participated in it after all. None of your questions have been "danced around". Again, you can choose to stick your head in the sand and pretend that your questions werent answered, that's your prerogative. But dont expect me to waste my time on you. The only thing which is going to happen is I'm going to answer your questions, again, and you will pretend that didnt happen, again. As I said, your behaviour has been commented on by a multitude of posters - many of whom haven't even participated in the discussion other than to specifically comment on your behaviour in this thread. It takes quite some posting standards on your part to elicit that reaction from uninvolved forum members. Case rested.

Fortunately, being right and having coherent arguments is not a popularity contest. It's rather pathetic that clinged to such an argument though... You make yet an other claim that needs verifying, that you answered these questions and that I ignored them. I clearly read the thread, yet, spotted no answer to these questions, hence, its rather strange to be accused of ignoring such non-existent answers. You're welcomed to point them to me. For all intents and purposes, the questions remains unanswered.

[Hmmm]

I didn't ask for further clarification. I don't why you're still commenting on it.

No, of course not, you just said I needed to be more clear in my post to Nebaki, after I had posted a specific response to you clarifiying that I was referring to Nebaki and even though the original comment was quite clearly directed at Nebaki. That totally wasnt unnecessary, it's not like you could have just gone "OK" and dropped it, or simply not commented after my first clarification. Nope.

Fortunately, being right and having coherent arguments is not a popularity contest. It's rather pathetic that clinged to such an argument though... You make yet an other claim that needs verifying, that you answered these questions and that I ignored them. I clearly read the thread, yet, spotted no answer to these questions, hence, its rather strange to be accused of ignoring such non-existent answers. You're welcomed to point them to me. For all intents and purposes, the questions remains unanswered.

Yep, keep digging. I'm sure your behaviour was totally right and coherent, that's why multiple posters who were uninvolved in the topic took time and went out of their way to comment on how you're... how was it one of them put it, "in denial"? Apparently not right and coherent enough to convince anyone. No, but I'm sure you're the only person in TWC who is capable of recognizing when someone is right and has "coherent arguments", and all those posters were simply unable to see who is right and coherent. You are, after all, the foremost expert in international law, right? To the point where you know better than international Courts, Commissions, experts and scholarship. That was your "coherent" argumentation, huh?

And before you decide to keep commenting: I'm not going to read your "answer". You're not part of this conversation, remember?

[ioannis76]

You didn't bother to source most of what you say. And when you are faced with the facts, you just try to wiggle your way out, Setekh. An example of this was when you were faced with the comparison between the Dutch and Turkish landing fleet, which had no business in the conversation in the first place, but never mind.

Your position is really not standing on strong ground with all the failed claims and points you ignored.

I ignored? How about you enlighten us on how, as I asked you previously:

In which way then can threats against Greece, creating a casus belli against Greece and building up an amphibious fleet that is second in NATO, and placing said fleet right in front of the Greek islands NOT to be taken as intention to attack Greek islands?

I said Turkey has a lot of cold war era landing crafts. I didn't say they were all old. You managed to find one line of ships numbering at 8 that was built in the last decade. When were the others build? What is their capability? Speed? Displacement?

LOL, should I keep looking at turkish landing craft and see how old they are? Well, here is one more:
TCG Orhan Gazi (NL-126)
http://navalanalyses.blogspot.gr/201...minelayer.html

ANd yes, the minelayer role is defensive, but the Landing role is obviously not. Should I look into more? Should I look into the future plans for even more Landing craft? It seems to be an obsession of the Turkish military to modernise its fleet of Landing Craft. Why?

Last time Turkey attacked Greece was over a century ago. It was in fact Greece that tried to invade Anatolia. Later, they participated in the attempted ethnic cleansing of Cyprus from Turkish minority.

Last time Turkey attacked Greece was the last time turkish aircraft come inside Greek airspace FULLY ARMED, and turkish ships come inside Greek territorial waters and conduct live-fire exercises inside Greek area, which is a few days ago. The fact that Greece does not respond violently and shoots down said aircraft or sinks said ships, does not mean that Turkey does not actually attack Greece.
Regarding Cyprus, thank you for bringing it up, because this is exactly what we are talking about when we say that Turkey will commit acts of barbarism and refer to them as "humanitarian":
What Turkey calls "peace keeping mission", the rest of the world calls invasion and barbarism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United...Resolution_360
The creation of the puppet state of "Northern Cyprus" was also condemned:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United...Resolution_370

Here are some of the accomplishments of the turkish military during this "peace keeping operation":

http://www.kypros.org/Cyprus_Problem...ocities.html#4

Relevant Article of the European Convention on Human Rights: 'No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment... (Article 3).

Charge laid against Turkey: Turkish troops were responsible for wholesale and repeated rapes of women of all ages from 12 to 71, sometimes to such an extent that the victims suffered haemorrages or became mental wrecks. In some areas, enforced prostitution was practised, all women and girls of a village being collected and put into separate rooms in empty houses where they were raped repeatedly. In certain cases members of the same family were repeatedly raped, some of them in front of their own children. In other cases women were brutally raped in public. Rapes were on many occasions accompanied by brutalities such as violent biting of the victims causing severe wounding, banging their heads on the floor and wringing their throats almost to the point of suffocation. In some cases attempts at rape were followed by the stabbing or killing of the victims. Victims included pregnant and mentally retarded women.
Turkey's defence: No answer was given to these charges and Turkey boycotted the Commission's proceedings once her jurisdictional objection was rejected. Commission's verdict:
'The evidence shows that rapes were committed by Turkish soldiers and at least in two cases even by Turkish officers, and this not only in some isolated cases of indiscipline. It has not been shown that the Turkish authorities took adequate measures to prevent this happening or that they generally took any disciplinary measures following such incidents. The Commission therefore considers that the non-prevention of the said acts is imputable to Turkey under the Convention.
The Commission, by 12 votes against one, finds that the incidents of rape described in the above cases and regarded as established constitute Τinhuman treatmentΥ in the sense of Art. 3 of the Convention, which is imputable toTurkey (Report, paras. 373-4).

This, because you dared bring up the issue of Cyprus.

You simply tried to conflate a bunch of issues to basically demonize Turkey overall.

Do you even realize how ridiculous this sounds in light of Turkey's past? Nobody needs to demonise it, it does fine on its own. If Turkey does not want to be demonised, how about not committing atrocities every change she gets?

Do you need sources on Greek commandos marching in the streets of Athens chanting “Our dream is to enter Constantinople, raise our flag and sing our national anthem"

Special Forces are special forces. As I showed you, turkish troops actually DO much worse, as in rape and murder. So if I had to pick and choose what might make me more angry, a song or actual mass rape and murder, I'd go for the second.
The Greek defense minister is an idiot, but even so he was not THREATENING, he was referring to a very real possibility, given that the turkish crews, both in the sea and in the air are completely inexperienced and inadequately skilled to handle this equipment, given that most of the experienced personnel is either in jail or out of the military. And of course, some, even elite troops have come to Europe, seeking asylum.
Even before the coup, turkish pilots would make conscious attempts to kill Greek pilots, without the use of weapons:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLQao20bW4E
Go to 1:20 and see what the Turk pilot does.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv5evPsT_08

1:39 Greek pilot saying that the F-16s are doing dangerous maneuvers. In 1:50
"Did they pass in front of you?"
"Didn't you see what he did?"
"Barrel Roll around you?"
"I feel like shooting this bastard out of the sky, honestly"
"Calm down" He tried to kill me do you understand that?"

5 days later, in 23/5/2006 Konstantinos Iliakis was murdered in a similar way by turkish pilots.

As for the "refugees" that Kammenos mentioned, are you referring to the same terrorists that Turkey has supported and still supports, such as those who opened fire on the Russian pilot while he was parachuting down (in violation of the Geneva Protocol)? Their leader is a Grey Wolf, a turkish citizen. You know, the same group whose sign the turkish Prime Minister was making:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymKnnMJjtFA

son of an ex mayor in Turkey. The name of this little bastard is Alparslan Celik. Now tell me, are THESE the same terrorists? Or are you sending Europe OTHER terrorists. Because they sure as did not come from Greece originally.
So, add this to the provocations of Turkey towards Greece. Sending TERRORISTS into Greek territory. I've been saying this for quite some time, thank you for verifying it.

[Nebaki]

Lol guys please can someone from Greece explain this ? I mean what kind of you guys smoking to publish something like this in your Public TV ? I do not not want to offend someone here but roflmao what is this ? :

"Commander Panos Kammenos during the Turkish assault of Chios"

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Gigantus]

Neither of these seem to have percolated through, permanent closure it is then.

Please remember to constrain the subject of your attacks to the content of posts rather than members of the site.

Right, let's give this another try. Do revert to this level of 'personal' approach at your own peril.