GREECE issued a warning to Turkey today saying it would NOT tolerate any challenge to its territorial integrity.
“Greece is not a country which plays games,” Tsipras told an audience at the country’s shipping ministry.
The collision involving the two vessels occurred on Monday evening off Imia, known as Kardak in Turkish. Each side blamed the other for the incident.
Turkey and Greece, NATO allies, have been at odds over a host of issues from ethnically split Cyprus to sovereignty over airspace and overflights.
They came to the brink of war in 1996 in a sovereignty dispute over the islets, but tensions have eased since.
GETTY
Greece and Turkey tensions are rising after territorial infringement
EPA
Erdogan has increased his anti-Greek rhetoric
Yesterday Turkish advisor to Erdogan said Greece was “like a fly picking a fight with a giant.”
The chief advisor told Turkey’s TRT channel that he is “in no doubt” that the US has a plan to make Greece attack Turkey while its military is engaged in Syria.
Turkey’s response, Yigit Bulut said, will be tough, adding that Greece is no match for Turkey’s might. It would be like a “fly picking a fight with a giant,” he said and warned that terrible consequences would follow for Greece.
GETTY
President of Turkey Erdogan has slammed Greece as a ‘fly in comparison to a giant’
Nurettin Canikli, in a briefing to reporters in Brussels after meeting with the U.S. Defence Secretary, also said he disputed Mattis’s characterisation of the SDF as dominated by Arabs, saying the militia was completely controlled by the YPG.
