Greek PM wants asylum yanked for soldier after Turkish warning

ATHENS – Bowing to pressure from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras wants asylum revoked for a Turkish soldier so he can be returned and face prison or worse.

The military member was one of eight who fled a failed coup against Erdogan in July, 2016 in which they said they took no part but escaped in fear for their lives. A Greek court said it wasn’t safe for them to be extradited although Erdogan said Tsipras promised they would.

And now with the granting of asylum, Tsipras – who earlier in December hosted Erdogan in Athens – wants it reversed after saying he would abide by the court’s decision. Yanking the asylum doesn’t mean extradition although the ruling Radical Left SYRIZA said that was the favored position when the soldiers first landed in a helicopter.

“In following the standing position vis-a-vis the eight Turkish military personnel, as repeatedly and publicly stated, the Greek government today submitted a request to suspend yesterday’s decision by the (asylum) appeals committee to grant asylum,” was the announcement disseminated by Tsipras’ office, contradicting itself from saying it would abide by the court’s order against extradition as a related question.

The decision came from Greece’s Asylum Appeals Committee and set off warnings from Ankara it would have “negative impacts on bilateral relations,” Turkey’s Foreign Ministry was quoted by Daily Sabah as saying.

That set off immediate jitters from Tsipras’ Administration, which ironically includes the pro-austerity, marginal, jingoistic, anti-Turkey Independent Greeks (ANEL) led by Defense Minister Panos Kammenos, who has verbally clashed with Erdogan’s near-dictatorship. Kammenos said nothing about the asylum decision and has been quiet since Erdogan’s visit to meet with Tsipras and other government officials, excluding the Defense Minister.

“Politically motivated” decision

The decision was “politically motivated,” the Turkish newspaper quoted the Foreign Ministry as saying after the committee’s decision was announced, granting asylum to the copilot of the helicopter that flew another seven servicemen into northern Greece.

“Greece failed to show the support and cooperation we expect from an ally in the fight against terrorism by preventing criminals who took part in killing hundreds of Turkish people and targeting the democratic order,” the ministry reportedly said.

“By granting asylum to one of eight coup plotters involved in the July 15 coup, Greece has once again showed that it is a country that protects and embraces coup plotters with this decision,” the statement added.

Turkey has repeatedly requested the extradition of the eight officers but the Greek Supreme Court in January turned down the request amid concerns that they would not receive a fair trial if returned to their country.

The asylum committee upheld the court’s position, as well as arguments by international rights groups and the Council of Europe expressing concerns about Ankara’s human rights record in the wake of the attempted coup, adding that there was no evidence to suggest the co-pilot’s involvement in the uprising.

Turkish media later identified the man as Suleyman Ozkaynakci. The other seven servicemen are still in custody awaiting the committee’s decision on their asylum applications, probably next week.

When Erdogan was in Athens he made a point of saying that Tsipras had vowed to have the men returned and called again for their extradition.

“If such an event was undertaken against Greece, we would have been very careful. We would have immediately detained those individuals and extradited them to Greece,” Erdogan had also said in an interview with Kathimerini, indicating there is no due process in Turkey and that he decides people’s fates on his own.

Big threat to their country

According to the Turkish Anadolu news agency, Turkish Deputy PM Hakan Cavusoglu tweeted that Greece is not aware that every “Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) member released by them is a big threat to their country,” a reference to a Turkish cleric living in Pennsylvania the Turkish government said organized the overthrow attempt.

Turkey says the eight men are followers of the Gulen movement and took part in the coup, which they denied, and the asylum committee said there’s no evidence they were involved and no proof presented by Turkey.

“The terrorists you release today are like dynamite ready to explode, and you may not have a country to protect when it does,” Cavusoglu said in Turkish, while terming the “Greek attitude” – i.e. the independent judiciary – as “unfriendly,” speaking in war-like tones.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry charged that “Greece, who granted asylum to one of the eight coup plotters who participated in the July 15 coup bid, has once again revealed through this decision that it is a country that protects and embraces plotter … This decision, which we consider as a political motive, will undoubtedly have effects on our bilateral relations with Greece and our joint regional efforts,” Anadolu reported.