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Lausanne Treaty Raises Tension during Erdogan’s Visit to Greece

Demonstrators march against Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's visit in Athens, Thursday, Dec. 7, 2017. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
Demonstrators march against Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's visit in Athens, Thursday, Dec. 7, 2017. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
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Lausanne Treaty Raises Tension during Erdogan’s Visit to Greece

Demonstrators march against Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's visit in Athens, Thursday, Dec. 7, 2017. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
Demonstrators march against Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's visit in Athens, Thursday, Dec. 7, 2017. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

On the first day of his historic visit to Greece, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan touched on contentious issues between the two countries, especially the Treaty of Lausanne, the common borders and the Cyprus file.

In a news conference with his Greek counterpart, Prokopis Pavlopoulos, Erdogan said that some details of the Treaty of Lausanne, which delineated Turkey’s modern borders in 1923, were not clear.

He called for durable solutions to issues related to the Aegean Sea and Cyprus. But the Greek president insisted on excluding the idea of revising the treaty, saying: “The Treaty of Lausanne defines the territory and the sovereignty of Greece and of the European Union and this treaty is for us non-negotiable. It has no flaws, it does not need to be reviewed, or to be updated.”

Erdogan pointed out that Muslims in the western Thrace region were not able to choose their Mufti, while the Christian communities in Turkey enjoyed greater freedom when choosing their patriarchs.

The Turkish president also touched on the divided island of Cyprus. “Our aim is to find a permanent and fair solution on Cyprus, and find the same in the Aegean,” he said.

Greek government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos said that issues raised by Erdogan about the Treaty of Lausanne were cause for concern, adding that Greece hoped that the visit of the Turkish president would be an “opportunity to build bridges, not walls.”

Erdogan also met on Thursday with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

In remarks following the meeting, he underlined the need to base negotiations on positivity and common traits.

“Turkey and Greece should no longer see the glass as half empty but rather look at the full side,” the Turkish president said.

“We should base our negotiations on [such an understanding]. There are many common traits between our people, as long as we put aside those who have ideological obsessions… We are countries that have lived in each other’s pockets in the past. If we can establish a common discourse and wisdom, we can get rid of our problems,” he added.

In response, Tsipras highlighted the need to “focus on common ground rather than disputes between us.”

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Fire Tornadoes are a Risk Under California's Extreme Wildfire Conditions

The National Weather Service warned Tuesday that the combination of high winds and severely dry conditions have created a “particularly dangerous situation” - The AP
The National Weather Service warned Tuesday that the combination of high winds and severely dry conditions have created a “particularly dangerous situation” - The AP
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Fire Tornadoes are a Risk Under California's Extreme Wildfire Conditions

The National Weather Service warned Tuesday that the combination of high winds and severely dry conditions have created a “particularly dangerous situation” - The AP
The National Weather Service warned Tuesday that the combination of high winds and severely dry conditions have created a “particularly dangerous situation” - The AP

As if they aren’t already facing enough, firefighters in California also could encounter fire tornadoes — a rare but dangerous phenomenon in which wildfires create their own weather.

The National Weather Service warned Tuesday that the combination of high winds and severely dry conditions have created a “particularly dangerous situation” in which any new fire could explode in size. The advisory, which runs into Wednesday, didn’t mention tornadoes, but meteorologist Todd Hall said they're possible given the extreme conditions.

 

A look at fire tornadoes according to The AP.

What is a fire tornado? Fire whirl, fire devil, fire tornado or even firenado — scientists, firefighters and regular folks use multiple terms to describe similar phenomena, and they don’t always agree on what’s what. Some say fire whirls are formed only by heat, while fire tornadoes involve clouds generated by the fire itself.

The National Wildfire Coordinating Group’s glossary of wildland fire terms doesn’t include an entry for fire tornado, but it defines a fire whirl as a “spinning vortex column of ascending hot air and gases rising from a fire and carrying aloft smoke, debris and flame,” and says large whirls “have the intensity of a small tornado.”

Wildfires with turbulent plumes can produce clouds that in turn can produce lightning or a vortex of ash, smoke and flames, said Leila Carvalho, professor of meteorology and climatology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

“There is a rotation caused by very strong wind shear and a very hot, localized low-pressure system,” she said.

What is a fire tornado capable of? Fire tornadoes can make fires stronger by sucking up air, Carvalho said. “It creates a tornado track, and wherever this goes, the destruction is like any other tornado.”

In 2018, a fire tornado the size of three football fields killed a firefighter as it exploded in what already was a vast and devastating wildfire near near Redding, about 250 miles (400 kilometers) north of San Francisco in northern California. Scientists later described an ice-capped cloud that reached 7 miles (11 km) into the air and caused winds up to 143 mph (230 kph).

Research also suggests fire tornadoes can carry airborne embers, also called firebrands, over long distances, said James Urban, an assistant professor in the Department of Fire Protection Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. They also can change the fire’s behavior, he said.

“That’s also something that is dangerous and scary for first responders, or really anyone,” he said. “It can change and maybe go in a different direction.”

The interaction between wind, the fire plume and topography determines whether a tornado will develop, he said. For example, sometimes a certain topography will restrict airflow in such a way that a spiral pattern develops.

Can you make one in a lab? Together with San José State University, Worcester Polytech is part of a Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center. In the lab in Worcester, researchers have created small fire tornadoes by putting up walls around a fire or arranging a bunch of little fires that together restrict airflow. But that’s on a much smaller scale than what’s happening with the wildfires.

“We’ve got the biggest fire lab in the US for a university, but we cannot get something the size of what’s been reported at these fires,” he said. “You can’t really bottle that and put it in a lab.”