NATO gaffe sign of bigger strife between Turkey, Greece
The recent Turkish-Greek row over Twitter might be a taste of things to come
Rising tensions between Greece and Turkey over a simple goodwill tweet indicates how alarmingly volatile the relations between two NATO allies are becoming.
Allegations that Greece’s Russian-made S-300 air defense batteries locked on Turkish jet fighters during a NATO mission in the Mediterranean Aug. 28 increased tensions between Turkey and Greece. The bickering morphed into a more serious escalation on Twitter a few days later.
On Aug. 30, NATO’s Allied Land Command (LANDCOM), the organization’s headquarters that is tasked with coordinating allied nations’ armies and based in the western Turkish city of Izmir, sent a tweet to congratulate the centennial of Turkey's Victory Day. But the LANDCOM account soon deleted the tweet after protests from the Greek government. While there was some fuss among Turkish users of Twitter, the whole thing was treated as what it was: A tempest in a teapot.
One hundred years ago on Aug. 30, the Turkish military had destroyed the occupying Greek forces in western Anatolia, marking the end of what became Greece's “Asia Minor catastrophe” and the military victory of Turkey’s “National Struggle/War of Liberation.”
