The leader of Turkey’s main opposition party Republican People’s Party (CHP), Kemal Kilicdaroglu, threatened to come and take back a total of 18 islands occupied by Greece.
No worries. The leader of Kemalist CHP will not come in the next days, weeks or months. He will come in 2019, after his party will win the general elections of Turkey scheduled to take place in the same year.
As KeepTalkingGreece.com reports, lashing out at the Greek defense minister’s remarks on the Aegean islands who a few days ago told Turkey "Molon Labe " - meaning “come and take [them]” is a classical expression of defiance. According to Plutarch, Xerxes I, king of the Achaemenid Empire, demanded that the Spartans surrender their weapons and King Leonidas I responded with this phrase. It is an exemplary use of a laconic phrase - Kilicdaroglu said speaking at a party event in the northwestern province of Kocaeli...
“The Greek Defense minister says ‘Come and get it.’ I will come and take all of those islands back.
Why am I saying this? They said ‘Come and get it’ for Cyprus back in the day. What did Ecevit (former prime minister) do? He went there and took it back,”
The debate over the Aegean islands sparked when the CHP leader criticized President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Dec. 11 over his failure to raise the issue of “18 occupied islands” during his visit to the country.
“Why did not you talk about 18 occupied islands? Article 12 and Article 18 of the Lausanne Treaty were clearly violated. There are 13,000 military units and nearly 5,000 Greek troops on the islands,” Kiliçdaroglu said.
The question is - what will Merkel do?