MOVES IN MIDDLE EAST

New Zealand Herald, Volume 80, Issue 24540, 24 March 1943, Page 2

MOVES IN MIDDLE EAST

The transfer of the Greek Government from London to Cairo is taken as a sign by some Turkish observers that the Allies are planning action in the Eastern Mediterranean. If the move is really significant, it points at the Balkans as the coming storm centre. A campaign there would enable the Allies not only to strike at Axis communications but also to open the best supply line to Russia, through the Dardanelles. The essential preliminary to any such plan is to eject the Axis from its North African bridgehead in Tunisia and establish the Allied supply line by the short-cut through the Mediterranean. When this is accomplished, the Allies would still be faced by the grim task of clearing the approaches to the Dardanelles—Crete, the Dode•canese, the Aegean islands and the East Balkan littoral. That might prove an arduous undertaking and Russia have to wait a long time on the shipping of aid through the Straits. Her one immediate allevia--tion would be the material shortening of the sea route to the Persian Gulf. The rebuilding of Alexandretta and Mersin. the two Turkish ports ,in the East Mediterranean, suggests, | however, that the Allies may plan

to use them in sending supplies over- | land to Russia, saving thousands of ' sea miles over the route to the j Persian Gulf. Supplies landed afc | the two ports could be railed to the Black Sea ports of Samsun and Zonguldak and then shipped to Russian Caucasian ports. They could also be railed to Tiflis without transhipment. Turkey should raise no obstacle now that she has changed from neutral to non-belli-gerent status in the Allies' favour. Of course the improved facilities of the two ports may be fully occupied in handling the traffic for the rearmament of Turkey, a project that may signalise her eventual entry into the war on the Allied side.