‘We are like one family, Turks and Greeks…’

Listen to the sly Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davoutoglu arriving in Rhodes today for an informal meeting with Greece’s deputy foreign minister Dimitris Droutsas (news story in Greek here):

‘It’s a great pleasure for me to be in Rhodes today. I’m meeting with Dimitris and the tourism minister [Giorgos Nikitiadis], both of whom are my good friends. We meet like family. In reality, the Aegean Sea is our common home and when I was in Bodrum (Halicarnassus) I phoned Dimitris to see if it was possible for us to meet in Rhodes. He courteously accepted and I’m grateful for this. We are like one family, Turks and Greeks, since we share the same geography, cultural inheritance and tourist environment.’

The Aegean is our common home, indeed – and presumably like any common home you want your fair share of it, just like you want your fair share of Cyprus and your fair share of Thrace. And as for common cultural inheritance, I hear this often, but it is complete nonsense. To put it at its starkest, and following Kazantzakis, Greece represents freedom, Turkey death. End of story.