Oh well said indeed.  Realpolitik.

 

Realistically, only Turkey has a legitimate claim; now if the byzantine empire had survived in the peloponnesos and simply morphed into the new state of greece, then it would have a much stronger claim.  Considering this is the modern world one can't make claims on property that was lost 500 years in the past, regardless of sentimental or personal feelings with any hope of them being taken serious.  (though I will say WWII had situations where just that occured; based on the current situation only turkey has a claim, if something unforseen/unlikely were to happen that would dramatically change the situation then perhaps greece would become the main claimant)

 

And this is only possible if nationalistic lines become blurred in convergence of economic blocks where regional economy becomes free to pursue their own developments instead of requiring to be tied back to the national economy.

Quite a few reasons ...

 

First, in history, the Greeks weren't always victorious, and weren't united.

 

Second, the war ended with interventions from foreign powers, notably, Great Britain, France and Russia.

 

Had the Greeks gotten their act together to unite, they might have kept control of their own destiny.

 

The original Kingdom of Greece formed after Greek War of Independence was very small, confined largely to today's central Greece and Peloponnese, which aren't even close to Istanbul.

 

Only subsequent territorial gains in the 20th century - Macedonia before WW1, and western & eastern Thrace after WW1, brought Greek territories anywhere close to Istanbul.

 

Furthermore, Istanbul was the capital of the Ottoman Empire.  (Re-)conquest of Istanbul would have significantly escalated the scope of conflict from breakaway rebellions into all-out war against the Ottoman Empire.

 

What powers like Great Britain was not prepared to do at that time was to seriously weaken the Ottoman empire too much, or let the nascent Greek state become too large.  This was prompted by the thought that such occurrence would only benefit Russia, a rival of UK.  Not only was Russia geographically close to the region (and Britain a whole continent away), the Russians shared similar religious tradition with the Greeks - the Orthodox Church, and there were fears that the new Greek state would become a Russian satellite.

 

However, from the other point of veiw, the Turks own the city by right of conquest. The majority of the city identifies as Turkish, not Greek. I know that some people believe that right of conquest is not a real right, so it is really a coin toss. I think the Greeks have somewhat more right to it than the Turks, so I voted Greek.

 

History shows us that just becuase a city has a rather larger population than an aggressor, does not mean that the aggressor cant capture it. It has happened countless times.

Me too

 

 

Hey Greek fellows, if you want Constantinopel, why dont you start lobbying in EU for the membership of Turkey. So İstanbul becames an EU city and you all move there as EU citizens.

 

 

 

 

And why, may I ask, is that?

 

-Akolouthos

If so, it will  belong to the U.S., just like the former Persian empire; Iraq  Afgan,  soon Iran.

 

If it doesn't have oil,  then the Turks, or  who ever  wants it, can keep it.

The Sea for the Fishes and Dolphins

 

Humans have every other city on Earth, its time for the animal kingdom to establish an Empire, all hail the Eagle King 

 

 

If Turkey joined the EU all of Istanbul could migrate to Europe, leaving Istanbul free to be conquered by Greeks.

 

And Guantanamo Bay is?????

 

Then there is the fact you have capital punishment, different laws in different places...

 

Also Britain is neutral, the House of Commons isn't.

 

And that just about sums up British Politics...

 

This is amazing. And those people tend to teach democracy the whole word