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'See', they said, 'how the two islands flank both sides of the sea-passage to Smyrna, the terminus of all the railways which penetrate the Anatolian interior, while Mitylini barricades Aivali and Edremid as well.
As soon as the Greek Government has converted the harbours of these islands into naval bases, Anatolia will be subject to a perpetual Greek blockade, and this violent intimidation of the Turkish people will be reinforced by an insidious propaganda among the disloyal Greek elements in our midst. Accordingly the Turks refused to recognize the award of the powers, and demanded the re-establishment of Ottoman sovereignty in Mitylini and Khios, under guarantee of an autonomy after the precedent of Krete and Samos.
After the withdrawal of the Turkish squadron, the Greek fleet had to look on at the systematic destruction of Kydhonies, a flourishing Greek industrial town on the mainland opposite Mitylini which had been founded under the sultan's auspices only forty years before.
(a) The first of those in question are the Sporades, a chain of islands off the Anatolian coast which continues the line of Mitylini, Khios, and Samos towards the south-east, and includes Kos, Patmos, Astypali
Greek interests were presumably bound up with the economic prosperity and political consolidation of Turkey in Asia, and the Anatolian Greeks would merely have been alienated from their compatriots by any such impolitic machinations. 'Greek sovereignty in Mitylini and Khios', the Greeks maintained, 'does not threaten Turkish sovereignty on the Continent.
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