Free Republic

Turkey will suspend research for oil and gas exploration in disputed waters in the Eastern Mediterranean that abruptly raised military tensions with neighboring Greece, a top Turkish official said Tuesday. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told his aides to “put this on hold for some time,” presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin told Turkish broadcaster CNN Turk. Last week, Turkey announced plans to dispatch research vessel Oruc Reis and two support ships to carry out operations through Aug. 2 south of the Greek islands of Rhodes, Karpathos, and Kastellorizo. The islands are close to Turkey's coastline.

A while back I mentioned that my family travel to my wife's home island of Karpathos (between Crete and Rhodes) every August for vacation. We usually spend about two weeks there. You can find out more about Karpathos by visiting http://www.karpathos.org and following all the links there. I mentioned that we'd be willing to put together a small tour for anyone who was interested, and found that some folks were very interested.Well, now's the time. If you'd like to spend some time on a small Greek Island in the Aegean where much of the traditional island culture is still alive,...