U.S. NATO chief blames Turkey for 'ethnic cleansing' of Greeks, including own family

U.S. Navy Admiral James Stavridis, the senior American officer in both the U.S. European Command and NATO, blames Turkey for violence against its Greek minority, including his own family, almost 90 years ago.

In a first-person book he published last year, before he took over as NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), Stavridis termed Turkey's moves "ethnic cleansing" and a "pogrom," whose victims included his grandparents, expelled from their hometown of Izmir, and his father's uncle, who was killed by violent anti-Greek Turks.

Advertisement Fighter planes from United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) and other elements under Stavridis' command were to have taken part in the Anatolian Eagle exercise, from which the U.S. withdrew earlier this week, after Turkey barred Israel from participating.

Stavridis is closely supervising the upcoming American-Israeli Juniper Cobra air and missile defense exercise, and is scheduled to visit Israel soon. After being nominated to his current position, a mere year after publishing these charges against Turkey, Stavridis dropped the negative reference to Turkish treatment of his family and other ethnic Greeks. His current, sanitized version depicts Turkey as a starting point for a one-stop journey west to America.

more newspaper haaretz: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1121249.html