Greece’s Waterway Committee, made up of representatives from the Civil Aviation Authority, port authorities and the fire brigade, completed an inspection this week of the Patra waterway, a project approved in 2017.

The waterway will be managed and operated by Patra Waterway, in which Greek Water Airports (Ellinika Ydatodromia) is a majority partner.

Grecian Air Seaplanes will be carrying out the flights from Patra to the Ionian and Saronic islands and to Peloponnese destinations as well as to other destinations to be included on its network.

Indicative seaplane flight times from the Patras Waterway to Athens will be 45 minutes, to Corfu (55 minutes), Spetses (42 minutes), Pylos (38 minutes), and to Kefalonia (28 minutes).

“The return of seaplanes to our city will maximize its brand name, attracting Greek and foreign tourists to visit Patra and Western Greece,” said Patra Port Authority CEO Panagiotis Tsonis, adding that this was the final stage of the licensing procedure for the Patra waterway to be the first to open in Greece.

Also commenting on the news, Greek Water Airports SA Founder and Managing Director President Tasos Govas, said that the Patra Waterway, once operational, would serve as “guide” for the creation of an extensive network of waterways across the Peloponnese, allowing fast, safe and flexible movement of residents and tourists.

The security checkpoint at the Patras Port Water Airport. Photo source: Hellenic Seaplanes

Three years ago, a 12-year concession deal between the city’s port authority and Patra Port Waterway made up of Greek Water Airports SA and Hellenic Seaplanes was finalized, granting Patra Port Waterway the right to operate, manage and exploit a waterway airport on the northern side of the port.

Source: GTP

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has once again reversed course, approving Sweden’s bid to join the legacy European military bloc, having been promised a brace of classic F-16 fighter jets.

This new deal was hammered out at the recent NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, and included a vow by Türkiye to avoid quarrels with ancient enemy Greece also a NATO member.

During a 12 July press conference on in Vilnius, Erdogan touched on several issues important for Türkiye, including ratifying Sweden’s NATO bid, its F-16 jet deal with the US, and a “balancing act” between combatants Russia and Ukraine. Erdogan agreed to forward ratification of Sweden’s NATO bid to Parliament when it reopens in October, on the condition Stockholm provides a “road map” before ratification.

Ankara’s approval coincided with Sweden pledging support to update Turkey’s customs agreement with the European Union and its desire to approve visa-free travel throughout the EU for its citizens, a tricky matter in the current political climate, where third-world immigration is a hot potato.

Erdogan also hopes (against hope) that Stockholm will clamp down on members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a grouping banned as “terrorists” in Türkiye (others call them “freedom fighters”).

Sweden may have reluctantly agreed, while in fact they are not known for clamping down on anything – average Swedes walk the streets of many cities today scared half to death of violent crime and Islamic “no-go zones”. Few migrants convicted of violent crimes in tolerant Sweden ever get deported, either, instead enjoying the “country club atmosphere” of Scandinavian prisons.

Before departing for the NATO summit, Erdogan also said that he would arrange to fulfill requirements for Türkiye to join the European Union; after decades of reluctance, traditionally neutral Sweden is about to join, following Finland’s entry earlier this year.

Turkey has been eager to benefit from EU membership in one form or another since 1987, but current members are reluctant to let the large nation in.

Hours after Ankara said it would allow Stockholm into the bloc, the US announced it would proceed with the transfer of elderly F-16 fighter jets to Turkey, the likely trade-off for Ankara’s green light. However, US President Biden cannot go ahead with the deal for the planes without approval from the top Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs committees. Some US lawmakers have concern on how Turkey might deploy any US-provided fighters, considering its objectives in warring Arab countries often diverge from those of the USA.

Note that a dozen second-hand 47-year-old designed F-16 “Fighting Falcons” were sold off by Netherlands and Norway by each country as they were retired in 2022, in the “F-16 End Life of Type (ELOT)” program. These fighter aircraft will be going to the Ukraine, to support their campaign against Russian. The Dutch will meanwhile be acquiring either the troubled F35 fighter jets or possibly the more conventional F22 for their air force.

Greece, alarmed at such developments, has sought guarantees that the Turkish F-16s will not be used against Athens, as the two nations are engaged in an oh-so-familiar maritime waters dispute over the Aegean Sea.

While Greece has accused Turkey of violating its airspace more than 10,000 times last year, Turkey has threatened areas in Syria held by Kurds, a minority which the U.S. considers useful allies.

Taking advantage of the cooperative climate at the NATO Summit, Turkey resumed talks with Greece, after more than a year of tensions between the historic foes, at odds for decades over maritime boundaries, overlapping claims to their continental shelves and the endless and impossible Cyprus dispute. Nevertheless, Greece provided emergency assistance to Türkiye following the recent catastrophic earthquake, calming tensions somewhat.

Following the Vilnius meeting, the neighboring NATO members pledged to “activate multiple channels of communication” to settle issues; a joint statement announced a high-level Cooperation Council scheduled for Thessaloniki this fall.

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Prebookings by German travelers for Halkidiki are up by 19 percent compared to pre-Covid 2019, according to feedback collected by the Halkidiki Tourism Organization (HTO) during this year’s ITB show in Berlin.

The Halkidiki peninsula in Northern Greece, selected among the world’s best places to relax and unwind by Lonely Planet, appears to be this year’s top holiday destination by travelers in Germany and the UK, where prebookings were up by 16 percent over 2019.

The HTO attributes the rise in demand to more and earlier flights to Thessaloniki’s Makedonia Airport. Additionally, reservations by tourists from the Netherlands are up by 30 percent based on data presented by executives from Sunweb, TUI and Luxair.

HTO President Grigoris Tasios (left) and HTO General Director Georgios Broutzas (right) with their colleagues at ITB Berlin 2023. Photo source: Halkidiki Tourism Organization.

The HTO participated in this year’s ITB after a three-year hiatus due to Covid-19 and for the first time in cooperation with the Thessaloniki Tourism Organization with one stand presenting a combined city break-sea & sun travel experience.

The organization as well as Thessaloniki and Halkidiki tourism stakeholders participating in B2B meetings said public response was positive and travel intent increasing despite the cost-of-living crisis and the Russia-Ukraine war.

B2B meetings at ITB Berlin. Photo source: Halkidiki Tourism Organization.

For the first time this year, German tour operators are looking to include thematic tourism packages in their Halkidiki offerings such as maritime tourism, beekeeping, culinary and experiential tourism, said the HTO.

On the sidelines of ITB 2023, HTO officials had the chance to meet with the German press and to announce a series of press trips to Thessaloniki and Halkidiki.

With the slogan “Open for Change”, the world’s leading travel trade show ITB Berlin opened its doors on the Berlin exhibition grounds during March 7-9 for the first time as an exclusively B2B event.

Source: GTP

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NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, has repeated his claim that Sweden and Finland have done enough to satisfy Ankara’s demands that they crack down on extremism. He visited Turkey on Thursday in an attempt to move forward the ratification process for the two countries to join the military alliance. 

Alarmed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a year ago, the two Nordic nations abandoned decades of nonalignment and applied to join the alliance.

All 30 NATO members have approved their applications, and 28 have ratified their accession. Only Turkey and Hungary have failed to do so.

In recent weeks Sweden has been the focus of Turkey’s opposition to the pair joining, partially due to anti-Muslim protests in the country, including one where the Muslim holy book, the Quran, was publicly burned.

Turkey accuses the government in Stockholm of being too soft on groups it deems to be terror organizations or existential threats, including Kurdish groups. Earlier this month, Cavusoglu said Ankara has fewer problems with Finland joining.

It’s led to Stolentenburg softening his stance on Finland possibly joining before Sweden. Previously NATO’s chief and most member states insisted that the Nordic duo should join at the same time.

Source: Euronews

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The meeting is the first official US visit by Turkish Foreign Minister Cavusoglu since the Biden administration took office.

United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken is hosting Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in Washington, DC for a meeting expected to be dominated by a potential sale of F-16 fighter jets and Turkey’s refusal to approve Sweden and Finland’s NATO accession.

The meeting on Wednesday represented the first official visit by Turkey’s top diplomat since US President Joe Biden took office nearly two years ago – something observers have said may reflect the complicated relationship between the two countries. Blinken and Cavusoglu have met before on the sidelines of NATO summits and United Nations meetings.

“We are close allies and partners,” Blinken said at the start of the meeting, “that doesn’t mean we don’t have differences, but when we have differences, precisely because we are allies and partners, we work through them.”

Prior to the meeting, US and Turkish officials said the main topics would be Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Syria, and energy cooperation.

The US has praised Turkey for some of its actions in the wake of Russia’s invasion, in particular the mediation of grain corridor talks.

However, worries persist about Ankara’s deepening relationship with Moscow. Ties between the NATO allies have strained since Turkey acquired Russian missile defence systems in 2019, which led to Ankara’s removal from the next-generation F-35 fighter jet programme.

Turkey now hopes to buy F-16 jets from the US, a sale that some top members of Congress oppose despite support from the Biden administration.

Speaking at the top of the meeting, Cavusoglu referenced the possible sale, saying, “We expect approval in the line with our joint strategic interest.”

The Turkish official said the duo would also discuss “how we can strengthen our … cooperation in our fight against terrorism”, while directly referencing ISIL (ISIS) and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK – both groups Ankara sees as threats from beyond its southern border with Syria.

US officials have grown increasingly concerned about Turkey’s possible aim to carry out a new cross-border military operation against Kurdish armed groups, as well as its intent to normalise ties with Damascus.

Meanwhile, Turkey has been the main roadblock to Sweden and Finland joining NATO, which requires the approval of all 30 member states. Turkey and Hungary have yet to endorse the applications.

Turkey has accused the countries of harbouring Kurdish groups it deems “terrorists”. It said Sweden, in particular, must first take a clearer stance against these groups, as well as individuals it blames for a 2016 coup attempt.

Erdogan said on Monday that the two countries had to deport or extradite up to 130 “terrorists” to Turkey before parliament would approve their requests to join NATO. Officials from the Nordic countries have said the demands go too far.

On Tuesday, Finland said it hoped the Turkish foreign minister’s US visit would help to clear the impasse.

F-16 sale

The meeting comes after the US Department of State informally notified the US Senate and House of Representative committees that oversee arms sales of its intention to proceed with the $20bn sale of F-16s to Turkey.

The move triggered a barrage of statements from members of Congress opposing the deal, including from Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, whose leaders review major foreign military sales.

In a statement to the Reuters news agency, Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen said “[Turkish President Tayyip] Erdogan’s … repeated attacks on our Syrian Kurdish allies, and continued cozying up to Russia – including delaying Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership – remain serious causes for concern.”

“As I’ve said before, for Turkey to receive the F-16s, we need assurances that these concerns will be addressed,” he added.

Meanwhile, Ibrahim Kalin, Erdogan’s chief foreign policy adviser, told reporters on Saturday that  Washington’s demands relating to the supply of the fighter jets were “endless”.

He added he hoped the F-16 deal would not become “hostage” to the NATO memberships of Sweden and Finland.

While Congress can block foreign arms sales

Source: Aljazeera

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Turkey and Hungary are the only members of the 30-nation alliance yet to approve the Nordic nations’ application.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has signalled that Ankara could accept Finland into NATO before taking any action on the membership of its Nordic neighbour Sweden.

Erdogan was speaking just days after Ankara suspended NATO accession talks with the two countries after a protest in Stockholm in which a far-right politician burned a copy of the Quran.

“We may deliver Finland a different message [on their NATO application] and Sweden would be shocked when they see our message. But Finland should not make the same mistake Sweden did,” Erdogan said in a televised speech aired on Sunday.

Sweden and Finland applied last year to join NATO after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, dropping their longstanding military nonalignment.

Every member of the 30-nation alliance needs to approve their membership, and Turkey and Hungary are the only countries yet to have done so. The Hungarian parliament is expected to approve the bids in February.

Erdogan’s main complaint has been with Sweden’s refusal to extradite dozens of people that Ankara has linked to the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and a failed 2016 coup attempt.

He is facing an election in May and has dug in his heels over Sweden’s NATO membership as he tries to energise his conservative and nationalist supporters.

On Sunday, Erdogan repeated his demand for Sweden to hand over some 120 alleged suspects.

“If you absolutely want to join NATO, you will return these terrorists to us,” Erdogan said.

“You will send these terrorists to us so that you can join NATO.”

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson has said his country wants to restart NATO dialogue with Turkey.

Late on Saturday, the Turkish foreign ministry issued a travel warning for European countries over anti-Turkish demonstrations and what it described as Islamophobia.

The warning cited an increase in anti-Turkish protests by “groups with links to terror groups,” a reference to the PKK, which took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984.

Pro-Kurdish groups have waved the flags of the PKK and its affiliates during protests in Sweden organised as a response to Sweden and Finland’s promise to prevent PKK activities in their countries in order to secure Turkey’s approval for them to join NATO.

As part of that memorandum, Erdogan said Turkey had provided a list of 120 people it wants extradited from Sweden.

Source: Aljazeera

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Egyptian FM Sameh Shoukry and Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu say diplomatic relations to be upgraded to ambassador level ‘as soon as possible’.

Egypt’s foreign minister has said talks with Turkey on the possibility of restoring ties to the ambassadorial level would happen at “the appropriate time” during the first visit to Cairo by Turkey’s top diplomat since relations ruptured a decade ago.

At a joint news conference on Saturday Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu said Turkey would upgrade its diplomatic relations with Egypt to ambassador level “as soon as possible”.

“I’m very glad that we are taking concrete steps for normalising relations with Egypt … We will do our best not to rupture our ties again in future,” Cavusoglu said.

Shoukry said: “We will come to talks (on restoring ambassadors) at the appropriate time, depending on the positive results it brings.”

Ties between Turkey and Egypt were severely strained after Egypt’s then-army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi led the removal of Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi, an ally of Ankara, in 2013. El-Sisi was elected president the following year.

The two countries have also been at odds in recent years over Libya, where they backed opposing factions in an unresolved conflict, and also over maritime borders in the gas-rich Eastern Mediterranean.

Cavusoglu said on Saturday that Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Egypt’s el-Sisi would meet “after the Turkish elections”, including the presidential vote slated for May 14, to mark the end of a decade of estrangement between the two countries.

Diplomatic relations ‘still low’

Reporting from Istanbul, Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar said that two intertwined issues remain unresolved in Egypt-Turkey relations.

“There is a promise of restoring ties, but relations on a diplomatic level are still quite low,” said Serdar, pointing out that the countries’ opposing positions on Libya and the Eastern Mediterranean are the main sticking points.

“Turkey and Egypt are supporting different sides. Turkey is supporting the Tripoli-based internationally recognised government [in Libya] while Egypt is supporting Benghazi, Khalifa Haftar and his army there,” said Serdar.

Libya has had little peace since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that overthrew Muammar Gaddafi, and it split in 2014 between rival eastern and western factions, dragging in regional powers.

“In 2019, the East Mediterranean Gas Forum was formed … but Turkey has been purposefully excluded. In response, Turkey has signed a maritime deal with the Tripoli-based government,” Serdar added.

Consultations between senior foreign ministry officials in Ankara and Cairo began in 2021 amid a push by Turkey to ease tensions with Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

As part of that tentative reconciliation, Ankara asked Egyptian opposition TV channels operating in Turkey to moderate their criticism of Egypt.

Morsi died in prison in Egypt in 2019. Other senior members of the Muslim Brotherhood are jailed in Egypt or have fled abroad, and the group remains outlawed.

Last month, Shoukry visited Turkey in a show of solidarity after the massive earthquakes that killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey and Syria.

Egypt’s government, which has been struggling to manage an acute shortage of foreign currency, said Turkish companies had committed to $500m in new investments in Egypt.

Source: Aljazeera

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Tuba Yolcu is desperate for news of her missing aunt and scours a sports hall where victims of a powerful earthquake that hit her hometown in Türkiye lie in body bags.

“We hear (the authorities) will no longer keep the bodies waiting after a certain period of time, they say they will take them and bury them,” she said.

“God willing we will find her,” Yolcu said, with worry etched on her face.

Monday’s 7.8-magnitude tremor struck Kahramanmaras in the country’s southeast, unleashing catastrophe in the region and Syria, killing at least 28,000 people.

Anguished families flock to sports halls, hospital morgues or cemeteries in the severely hit city — where bodies are piling up — in a bid to find their missing relatives.

“Every unidentified body will eventually be returned to their family,” a prosecutor said, trying to soothe the families.

“Don’t worry, blood samples are taken from each and every missing body,” he assured.

Families — who cannot reach their loved ones during the rescue work — check one by one bodies either in bags or wrapped in blankets.

“We show the faces to their immediate relatives,” a crime scene investigator in a hazmat suit told AFP at a large grave outside the city.

Funeral cars deliver a stream of bodies, burying them one by one.

“If the identity is unknown, we take fingerprints and tooth samples and compare them with their relatives,” said the investigator, who carries a camera around his neck.

About 2,000 bodies have been identified at the cemetery, which is filled with freshly dug graves. 

Next to the wooden headstones at the makeshift cemetery, where some are wrapped by scarves, people mourn their relatives.

One woman sits near the grave, unable to stop crying.

Missing bodies are stored lower down, where investigators take pictures and notes.

Yusuf Sekman, from the religious affairs directorate, said the unidentified bodies are also divided according to where their collapsed building was located.

This allows relatives to “also look, based on the recovered body’s address”, he said.

“Their samples are taken, and noted down on body bags” to help with identification.

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Friday he hoped the missing bodies would be identified and said the government was doing everything it could.

“We upload unidentified patients’ photographs to a special software in order to match,” Koca said.

Unfortunately for Yolcu, her aunt was not at the sports hall since an official said all the bodies have been identified.

When the quake struck, her aunt was in the city but Yolcu was in a village.

“We cannot find her body,” she said, adding that she won’t stop looking.

As she stepped out of the hall, she turned back to her husband and said: “Let’s return to the rubble”, hoping that perhaps her aunt had yet to be pulled out.

Source : Hürriyet Daily News

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The deadly earthquakes that jolted the Türkiye’s south were much more destructive than the tremors of similar magnitude in other countries as the settlements were established in the wrong places of the region, a quake expert has said.

“The satellite images reveal that the quakes have not damaged the houses in the areas located even a little near to the fault lines, or in the hilly areas,” Cenk Yaltırak, a professor from Istanbul Technical University’s (İTÜ) Geology Deparment, told Hürriyet Daily News, pointing out that the settlement areas in the region were chosen incorrectly.

Recalling the 2016 earthquake in New Zealand’s Kaikoura town with a magnitude of 7.8 that killed two people and left 57 others injured, Yaltırak said, “The earthquakes on Feb. 6 were not unprecedented in magnitude.”

Stating that he examined the fault ruptures in Hatay’s Kırıkhan district after the earthquakes, Yaltırak said there are many factors behind the destruction, from high-rise buildings to their spread over the land, and criticized the granting of construction permits to areas that do not meet the requirements.

The reconstruction in the region should not be done in the same way, he warned, informing that the possibility of an earthquake of similar magnitude continues in the extension of the same fault in Syria.

The expert also argued that the population of Istanbul should be limited to 10 million as a precaution against the expected earthquake in Marmara.

“Industrialists and factories in the region should no longer be given incentives and tax exemptions,” Yaltırak said. “Entrepreneurs from Anatolia should develop their own cities.”

The megacity with 15.9 million residents that last suffered heavy damage from earthquakes in 1999 is on edge, according to the repeated warnings by experts about the expected quake with a magnitude of 7.0 or higher.

Source : Hürriyet Daily News

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Former CHP Chairman and MP Deniz Baykal passed away at the age of 84 on Feb. 11, CHP Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu announced.

Baykal passed away at his home in the capital Ankara, according to his family and a ceremony will be held on Feb. 13 at the Turkish Parliament. He will be laid to rest in his hometown Antalya.

“It is with great sadness that I learned of the death of our Chairman, a lover of Türkiye and our Republican People’s Party, Antalya MP, our precious elder Deniz Baykal. He left us a life story full of struggles. Condolences to our nation,” Kılıçdaroğlu said on Twitter. 

Politicians from the ruling AKP also shared condolence messages for Baykal.

“We regret the death of Antalya Deputy and former Chairman of the Republican People’s Party Deniz Baykal, who is among the important names of our political history. I wish God’s mercy on him, and my condolences to his family and CHP community,” Turkish Parliament speaker Mustafa Şentop said. 

“I wish God’s mercy on the former Chairman of the CHP, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, our dear citizen, our Antalya deputy, Deniz Baykal. I offer my condolences and patience to his family,’ Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said. 

Source : Hürriyet Daily News

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