On 17 February President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan delivered a speech on Operation Olive Branch (the current invasion of Syria by the Turkish army) at the Provincial Congress of Eskişehir of the AKP. He declared the following: “Those who think that we have erased from our hearts the lands of from which we withdrew in tears, 100 years ago, are quite mistaken. On ever occasion we say time and time again, that Syria, Iraq and other places on the map of our hearts are no different from our own homeland. Wherever a call to prayer is heard, we fight to ensure that no foreign flag flutters. What we have done till now, is nothing compared to the far bigger attacks that we have in mind for the forthcoming days. This is what God wants!”

Turkey, a Nato member, is already occupying territories in Cyprus, Iraq and Syria. She is making a claim to Greek territories where a Muslim minority is dwelling.

On 15 October 2016, President Erdogan unveiled Turkey’s new foreign policy, during a speech delivered at the university which bears his name. He announced his intention to reconquer the territories that his country had been deprived of following its defeat at the end of the First World War. By this, Erdogan would be implementing the national oath (Misak-ı Millî) of the last Ottoman Parliament, adopted in 12 February 1920. Erdogan mentioned specifically Western Thrace and the archipelago of Dodecaneso which today form part of Greece.

In December 2017, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of the People’s Republican Party (CHP, socialist), announced that Turkey would invade 18 Greek islands in 2019 just as Bülent Ecevit had invaded Cyprus in 1974 because, “there is no document” proving that these island depend on Athens.