Has the White House inadvertently stepped into one of the Mediterranean's oldest unresolved conflicts, namely: which country in the region gets to claim itself as the inventor of baklava?
The issue has been heating up over the last few years. In 2006, for example, Turkish makers of the flaky dessert were outraged when European Union tourism posters featured baklava as a, gasp, Cypriot invention. But the baklava battle has opened up a new front after a March 22 White House dinner in honor of Greek Independence Day. Although it was a closed affair, Maria Loi, a New York-based Greek chef who prepared the evening's dinner, told a Greek-American publication that President Barack Obama "loved baklava." Picked up by the Turkish press, the story became one of the President saying how much he loved "Greek baklava," leading to angry denunciations from columnists who suggested Obama brush up on his Balkan culinary history and that Loi's entire menu for the affair -- moussaka, stuffed grape leaves, Greek salad and the offending baklava -- was comprised of nothing more than Turkish dishes dressed up as Greek ones.
Worried about the Greeks claiming other cross-border staples as their own, some Turkish foodmakers are now taking preemptive action. Reports Turkey's Cihan news agency:
The İstanbul Simit Tradesmen Chamber has launched a process to get an international patent for the number one Turkish street food, the simit, a ring of chewy bread coated with toasted sesame seeds.
Greece has long been concerned about the flow of irregular migrants who cross its borders from Turkey, but a Greek plan to build a water-filled ditch along the two countries' shared border is causing concern in Ankara that the plan is not just about stopping migrants from crossing the frontier. From a very interesting article in The National:
"We are following the recent developments in Greece about digging a ditch at the Turkish border with concern," Egemen Bagis, Turkey's minister for EU affairs, said earlier this month. "I hope our Greek friends are not after a foreign crisis to divert the attention from their domestic crisis," Mr Bagis added in reference to the financial turmoil in Greece, which is close to bankruptcy and has to rely on help from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.
It was "surprising to see Greece spending funds in such a project at a time when it is muddling through a financial crisis", Mr Bagis said. "For a more effective solution, Greece should have chosen to increase its cooperation with Turkey against irregular migration rather than coming up with palliative solutions."
Greece is digging a 120-kilometre trench along its north-eastern border river Evros, or Meric in Turkish, to hold back recurring river floods but also to stem illegal immigration, the Athens daily Ta Nea reported. The ditch, which is being built by the military, is reported to be seven metres deep and 30 metres wide. About 14.5km had been dug as of early August. The online edition of the Greek newspaper Ekathimerini reported the trench was to be filled with water, adding that the project was treated as a "military operation".
