Islands belong to Ottomans

Ankara - Turkey's new far-right Defence Minister said yesterday that disputed Aegean islands should be returned to their original owners, the Ottomans. His comments came after a group of Greeks had landed on a small Aegean outcrop and raised a Greek flag there. Similar incidents in 1996 brought the two neighbours to the brink of war. The Defence Minister, Mr Sabahattin Cakmakoglu of the far-right Nationalist Action Party, said dialogue with Greece "should start from the basis that territories, islands and islets that belonged to the Ottoman Empire and were lost during war when later countries emerged, and which are not named in post-war agreements, should belong to their original owner."