Erdoğan Shocks Athens after Threatening It in Greek

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has directly threatened Greeks in a series of tweets in their own language not to go too far with their stance in the Aegean Sea, otherwise, they will regret it.

Ankara pushes for the demilitarization of Greek islands neighboring Turkey claiming that the presence of the Greek army is a threat to the country’s security and invoking international treaties to get results.

Greece, on the other side, argues that it maintains military forces there in response to Turkey’s İzmir-based “Aegean Army” on the other side of the Aegean Sea, revoking bad memories from the past, as in 1974, when Turkey invaded and occupied Cypriot territory illegally, remaining until today, after the Greek Junta pulled out troops from the island.

Erdoğan once again warned Athens to be prudent and stay away from dreams, rhetoric, and actions that will lead to regrettable results as it happened a century ago.

He also resents Athens for using and instrumentalizing EU and NATO as a protective umbrella in its relations with Turkey, which is also a member of NATO, involving them in various illegal military exercises on islands with a non-militarized regime.

Turkey, on the other hand, has insisted that pending issues with Athens should be resolved bilaterally.

Erdoğan’s threats came amid the fresh escalation in the Greek-Turkish relations enticed by the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ speech at the US Congress last month, prompting the Greek government to call for national unity toward the “unpredictable” neighbor.

While Mitsotakis called for national unity toward Turkey, the government spokespersons Yiannis Oikonomou pointed out that the tactics chosen by Turkey will fail and Alexis Tsipras, the main opposition leader and former prime minister tweeted in Turkish demanding returning to dialogue and stressing that Greece will protect its sovereignty against any threat.

Be that as it may, it seems that Berlin’s mediation efforts through the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who is visiting Thessaloniki today to take part in SEECP, are doomed to fail as Erdoğan has made it clear that Mitsotakis no longer exists for him.