Ankara urges Athens to avoid ‘new adventures’
ANKARA
Defense Minister Hulusi Akar has strongly urged Greece to avoid new adventures that would result in a big defeat just like they had observed one century ago, in remarks following the Greek warplanes’ harassment of the Turkish F-16s twice in three days.
“Don’t these headquarters say everything? On these days we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Great Victory, we tell Greece ‘You have seen how painful the cost of the adventure was you embarked on a century ago.’ We strongly advise you to draw lessons from history and avoid new adventures that will end with defeat,” Akar said in an interview with the daily Hürriyet on Aug. 26.
Akar made this statement from the headquarters Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his military aides had used in Akşehir province in western Anatolia while fighting against the Greek occupation of the Anatolian region. The Turkish army had started a major and decisive offensive against the Greek army on Aug. 26, 1922, that resulted in an undisputed victory on Aug. 30.
His remarks came only a few days after Ankara announced that its warplanes were harassed by Greek jetfighters on Aug. 22 and Aug. 24 although they were conducting NATO missions. Türkiye accused Greece of risking NATO activities and creating new provocations in the Mediterranean and Aegean.
Akar explained that the United States, on July 2, requested the participation of the Turkish jetfighters in a NATO mission to provide air protection for the American planes that will take place on Aug. 22. “We said ‘OK’ and the flights have started. And all these flights have been shared with all NATO countries. The notification took place on July 2 and the mission occurred on Aug. 22. Right at that time Greece intervened and changed the flight route over the demilitarized islands,” Akar explained.
The reason why Athens wanted to change the route is its intention to push NATO to this region where a number of Greek islands should be demilitarized in line with international treaties, the minister said, “Meaning, they want to violate the Lausanne Treaty. That’s why they wanted to change the route at the last minute. Then they scramble their warplanes and put our planes under radar lock.”
Greek officials defended themselves by denying that they were notified of the flights and that is why they defined the Turkish warplanes as unidentified aircrafts, Akar said, asking “Can there be an unidentified aircraft?”
Greece repeated the incident on Aug. 24 against the Turkish warplanes that joined NATO’s Nexus Ace training mission over the Aegean, Akar said “It is impossible that they don’t know that our warplanes are taking part in a NATO mission. No such thing can happen in NATO. Flight missions were published months ago, records are kept and correspondence is happening. Despite all this, they harassed our jetfighters.”
Greek and American envoys summoned
On a question about what actions Ankara has taken after these incidents, the minister advised that both Greek and American ambassadors were summoned to the Foreign Ministry and the Greek military attaché to the Defense Ministry.
“We don’t harass anybody, but we don’t leave any harassment against us unanswered. We tell this to NATO and everyone. Under the leadership of our President, we are following a principled policy. And we are very serious, it’s no laughing matter,” Akar suggested.
Greece has three thousand islands and still claims more territorial waters, arms the islands that need to remain demilitarized and extends its airspace to 10 miles in violation of international law, the minister recalled.
No fait accompli in east Med
On the drilling activities by Türkiye’s new Abdülhamid Han vessel, Akar underlined that Türkiye was sincerely proposing to turn the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean into a joint work area with Greece but its calls were unanswered.
“We won’t allow the violation of our rights and the rights of our Turkish Cypriot brothers in the eastern Mediterranean and Cyprus. We won’t allow any fait accompli there,” he said, stressing Türkiye is ready to retaliate in kind should they do wrong against them.