By Leonidas Koumakis*
As is well known, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), established in 1975, is the largest intergovernmental organization for safeguarding security on our planet, with responsibility for human rights, freedom of the press, fair and free elections, and control of arms proliferation.
In all four areas of OSCE commitments Turkey is mired in very serious violations up to its neck:
(a) The provocative disregard for human rights in contemporary Turkey, including the strangulation of religious and educational freedoms, is evidenced by the imprisonment of thousands of people (politicians, businessmen, lawyers, ordinary citizens and artists) not for the actions they actually committed but for their ideas, through the use of arbitrary arrests, or by standard, vague accusations of “terrorism” as well as by the contempt for the implementation of hundreds of decisions of the European Court of Human Rights against their unjustified imprisonment or “convictions.” It is Turkey’s long-standing policy for the country to invoke human rights when it believes they serve a self-interest, but to flout them provocatively within Turkey!
(b) The freedom of the press in Turkey is literally in a distressed state, as the country is consistently at the top of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) annual reports with the most imprisoned journalists in the world. Systematic censorship is imposed by various laws and presidential decrees, while the control of the media in Turkey by the regime that controls power amounts to 95%, with the remaining 5% being persecuted with unprecedented violence and cruelty.
(c) The fair and free conduct of elections in Turkey, especially after the 2016 self-coup, is simply non-existent. A typical example is that of the last parliamentary elections in May 2023: In areas heavily affected and devastated by the deadly earthquake of February 2023 (Kahramanmaras, Malatya, etc.), the parties of the coalition partners Erdogan and Bahçeli gathered more votes than they had gathered in the elections held before the deadly earthquake, reaching percentages close to or more than 70%! As it is known, election results in Turkey are now transmitted by a special service of the ruling AKP party to the (controlled) Supreme Electoral Council which announces them!
(d) The illegal arms trade is literally rampant, with the official involvement of the Turkish state and the “Erdogan Family.” Proof of the illegal trade in 2015 by Cumhuriyet journalist Can Dundar (delivery of weapons by MIT to Islamist groups in Syria including al-Qaeda and the Islamic State) forced him to make a hasty escape to Germany in order to avoid being imprisoned for 27 years for “revealing confidential information, supporting a terrorist organization, and espionage.”
In the year 2017 Turkey caused a major scandal within OSCE when it accused the Organization of “treason” because he committed the “crime” of including on the list of speakers of the assembly of September 11-22, 2017, two NGOs (Journalists and Writer’s Foundation) who were not pleasing at all in Turkey!
Turkey’s then permanent representative to the OSCE, Rauf Engin Soysal, submitted a statement of protest and withdrew the entire Turkish delegation from the OSCE. Of course, he made sure that the various rubber stamped organizations created by the Turkish Millî İstihbarat Teşkilatı or National Intelligence Organization (MIT) using the pretense of being Non-Governmental Organizations and with individuals with prominently pompous names living in Greek Thrace, the Dodecanese, England, Sweden, Germany, Austria, etc. remained, so that as a real traveling troupe with richly paid actors, they shed rivers of crocodile tears at each separate OSCE meeting in which they have the right to intervene.
The permanent theme of the entertainment troupe —what else? —the alleged oppression that Greece exerts on Greek Muslim citizens, in Greek Thrace, the Dodecanese and elsewhere, whom Turkish propaganda calls the “Turkish minority”, and making outrageous and non-existent “accusations,” were even recently extended to include the Republic of Cyprus. Turkey claims alleged oppression of Turkish Cypriots by the Republic of Cyprus which, for propaganda reasons, is systematically called “Southern Cyprus,” insulting all the other OSCE member-states that recognize the whole of Cyprus as the Republic of Cyprus!
Taking into account all the above observations, it is surprising to learn that in 2024 Greece and Turkey are running candidates with a joint ballot for two of the four OSCE institutional positions in the upcoming elections, conducting a joint election campaign, and trying to secure support from other states for both candidates.
As far as Turkey is concerned, its choice for a joint candidacy with Greece is perfectly understandable, because in its effort to return “back” to the OSCE, where with its antics it destroyed any credibility, it inexpensively uses the European reputation, dignity, and sympathy that Greece has in the other 55 OSCE member-states for its “own benefit.”
But Greece? The country that has been under vile attack with a multitude of false allegations by an army of paid MIT employees for (at least) twenty years, what reasons does it have to support the candidacy, for the post of OSCE Secretary General, of the honorable Mr. Feridun Sinirlioglu, famous for Ankara’s systematic effort not only to create negative impressions of Greece but also to secure “legitimacy” at the United Nations for Turkey’s unacceptable, blatantly illegal positions and activities in Aegean / Mediterranean maritime zones?
C o n c l u s i o n: There is no doubt that Turkey is a totally unsuitable country to occupy the crucial post of OSCE Secretary-General for many well-founded reasons.
A country without any alteration to its neo-Ottoman fantasies since it was founded in 1923 until today, with a primitive mentality towards its citizens and minorities, as expressed as early as September 30, 1930 in the statement of the then Turkish Minister of Justice and published in the Turkish newspaper Milliyet (“The Turks are the only rulers in this country. Those who are not genuine Turks have no rights, only the right to be servants and the right to be slaves”).
A country that has already invaded or threatens to invade foreign countries;
A country that arbitrarily occupies—in violation of international rights and international laws—foreign territory in Cyprus, Syria, Iraq, war-torn Libya using corrupted politicians, and even having set foot in Armenia under the cover of the dictator of Azerbaijan, Aliyev;
A country that massacres or violently attacks its minorities with pogroms and deportations, a country that imposes free movement of long-term residents on Imvros and Tenedos islands with 92% minority population, imposes an extraordinary wealth tax on its minorities to confiscate their wealth, forcibly sends young population of Greek minority to forced labor installations, but at the same time does not hesitate to declare itself the “protector” of other minorities in foreign countries in order to create camouflages for future arbitrary interventions;
A country that systematically dismisses elected mayors in Southeast Turkey by appointing government controlled “administrators”, with the most obvious case taking place in 2014 (dismissal of 95 elected Kurdish mayors on the nebulous and vague charge of “terrorism”) and most recently the arrest of Kurdish co-mayor Mehmet Sıddık Akış in Hakkari and the appointment of an “administrator” by the Turkish Ministry of Interior, which caused an uproar and protests that still continue (June 2024);
A country that destroys World Heritage Sites, systematically converting Christian churches into mosques, with the most egregious example being the Church of God’s Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia), which served as a church for about ten centuries before the fall of Constantinople by the Mongol Turks;
A country that refuses to grant accreditation to many “unwanted” OSCE observers in its elections;
A country that does not recognize an OSCE member state (i.e. the Republic of Cyprus) with continuous and repeated declarations – alone among all other OSCE countries;
A country that pays no attention to the repeated calls of European and other leaders to “stop illegal actions in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean”, to “respect the sovereign right of Cyprus to explore and exploit natural resources in accordance with European and international law;”
A country which in effect, systematically and over time, violates all the areas of responsibility of the OSCE without exception, certainly does not have the qualifications and prerequisites to occupy the crucial position of Secretary-General by attempting to transform itself from a wolf into a harmless lamb.
If Greece does not want or cannot face this reality, let us hope that the other 55 OSCE member states that will finally vote for the persons who will occupy these posts will see and evaluate it correctly.
* Leonidas Koumakis: Lawyer, Author, Columnist-Analyst, member of the International Hellenic Association. His autobiographical, timeless book The Miracle-A True Story, which refers to the methodical extermination of Hellenism of Constantinople by the Turkish state, is available completely free of charge in the IHA electronic library, both in Greek and English. On 29/1/2024, the book ERDOĞANISTAN was added to the IHA electronic library, which helps to better understand contemporary Turkey, and which is also available completely free of charge in Greek.
Translated into English by Prof. Ellene (Eleni) Phufas-Jousma
Τα άρθρα που δημοσιεύονται στην ιστοσελίδα του ΙΗΑ εκφράζουν αποκλειστικά τους συγγραφείς – μέλη του ΙΗΑ. Η ιστοσελίδα του ΙΗΑ δεν λογοκρίνει, ούτε επεμβαίνει σε άρθρα – κείμενα των μελών του ΙΗΑ
International Hellenic Association
