Turkey expects proper answers from Greece over militarized Aegean islands

ANKARA

Turkey has sent two letters indicating that Greece violates the international law by arming the islands with the de-militarized status in the Aegean Sea, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has said, calling on Athens to give proper answers to Turkey instead of escalating the tension.

“The reason Greece is becoming much more aggressive is the fact that they fail to bring about a legal explanation over why they are arming the islands in the Aegean,” Çavuşoğlu said at a joint press conference with Foreign Minister of North Macedonia Bujar Osmani on June 7 in Ankara.

Turkey has long been slamming Greece for violating the 1923 Lausanne and 1947 Paris treaties that prohibit Greece from deploying weapons on certain islands with close proximity to the Turkish mainland.

“Greece should disarm these islands. If not, the sovereignty of these islands will be open to discussion. That’s what we clearly tell Greece,” Çavuşoğlu stated.

The Turkish diplomat accused some Greek politicians of suffering from an inferiority complex towards Turkey and making attacks against Turkey on a daily basis. “They probably think that they won’t be able to satisfy their people if they don’t attack against us. I cannot see any other reason, this stems from an inferiority complex.”

Greece should embrace an understanding within the boundaries of the law and should stop violating the two treaties on the islands, Çavuşoğlu said, also criticizing Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias for complaining about Turkey at a meeting with businessmen.

“Unlike them, we never advised our businessmen to suspend economic and trade ties with countries which we have serious differences. To the contrary, we always tried to encourage them because we know ties with those countries can improve over time as we are now observing with the normalization process with so many countries,” he stated.