Greece informed the European Union (EU), NATO and the UN on Wednesday about what it described as “unprovoked” threats against its sovereignty issued by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
During the month of August and last weekend, Erdogan delivered several speeches on the occasion of the centenary of Turkey’s victory in the three-year war against Greece (1919-1922), which ended with the announcement of the founding of the Republic from Turkey in 1923.
According to Athens, the Turkish president accused Greece of “occupying” the Aegean islands, whose status was defined in post-war treaties, and warned that the Turkish Armed Forces could “intervene overnight” and “do what is necessary”. “.
“The price will be high if they go further,” Erdogan insisted, referring to the fall of Izmir (modern Turkish Izmir) in 1922, followed by the burning of the city on the Aegean coast and the massacre or expulsion of non-Izmir populations. muslims , particularly the local Greeks, settled in the region for more than two millennia.
The letters sent today by the Greek authorities to the UN, the EU and NATO (an alliance of which Greece and Turkey are part) consider Erdogan’s statements “openly threatening” and “unacceptable”.
The Greek authorities stress that Turkey has an important naval fleet and an army corps stationed in the vicinity of the islands in question, and recall that the country invaded the island of Cyprus in 1974.
On Tuesday, the Greek Foreign Minister, Nikos Dendias, considered “increasingly scandalous and unacceptable” the statements of Turkish officials, and assured on the same occasion that the Greek army “is enough to defend the Hellenic homeland.”
In recent months, Erdogan has intensified verbal attacks against Greece, in an electoral context with the proximity of the decisive legislative and presidential vote in Turkey in 2023.
The two neighboring countries have been fighting for years over maritime borders and energy exploration rights in various sectors of the Aegean Sea, in a dispute that extends to other regions of the eastern Mediterranean.
Athens also accuses the Turkish Air Force of frequently flying over the Greek islands. For its part, Turkey has expressed its opposition to the recent Greek defense agreements signed with France and the United States.
Source: TSF
