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Greece helps Turkey despite Turkish enmity: Pundit

Sunday, 17 July 2016 1:18 PM [ Last Update: Sunday, 17 July 2016 4:13 PM ]

Two of the eight Turkish officers due to appear before a Greek prosecutor, arrive escorted by police officers in Alexandroupoli, northern Greece, on July 17, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

Press TV has conducted an interview with Don DeBar, a radio host and TV commentator based in New York, about the Greeks’ assistance to Ankara in returning coup elements to Turkey.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Looking at the situation, your take on all of this that when we have supposetively these eight members of the military that flew over into Greece and want political asylum.

DeBar: Like they say, “You can’t tell the players without a scorecard.” There’s so many contradictory things happening at one time and so much at stake and it is such a flashpoint with the US military deployed up against Russia’s borders and across South China Sea and Russian pilots being shot down by Turkey before, and now this attempted coup shortly after Erdogan made overtures towards Russia. You have this other gentleman, who is a former ally of Erdogan now is an adversary staying here in Poconos not far from where I am. And the possibility of some accidental series of events leading to perhaps World War III. So it’s really hard to parse everything and then Greece and Turkey of course. The fact that Erdogan has been antagonizing Greece more than Turkey generally has done over history and that’s a considerable amount. And suddenly the Greeks are saying hey look we’ve got some of the guys that tried to depose you here. The whole thing is very amusing in a way to watch and also a bit frightening.

Press TV: Overall the situation in Turkey, do you see this escalating or actually or Erdogan being able to clamp down even more on those who perhaps were not for him or support him?

DeBar: Again it’s so riddled with contradictions. He’s been attacking the Kurds for example the Kurd parts of Turkey very aggressively. He’s been attacking the media very aggressively, part of that media, however, is under the control or influence of somebody here in the United States who fled Turkey and was a friend ... And there’s also an attack on the ... legitimate Turkish media by Erdogan. He has very few friends to stand with across the country with the exception of some sector of the electorate. So it’s going to be interesting to see how he manages to stay in power and so it’s going to be interesting to see how Turkey ends up swinging between the United States and Russia, and how that affects policy in Syria and also policy in the region generally from the geopolitical perspective.

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