Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatens to launch a new operation in Syria and made provocative comments against Greece.
On Saturday, Greece's ambassador to Turkey was summoned to the Foreign Ministry over concerns about the activities of the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party in his country. Turkish officials complained to Ambassador Christodoulos Lazaris about the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, carrying out propaganda, financing and recruitment in Greece, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported on Friday.
Erdogan was miffed at the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis because, during his visit to the US, the latter sealed a deal for the supply of F-35 fighter jets to Greece. Mitsotakis in an address to the US Congress urged it to keep blocking the sale of sophisticated weapons to Turkey.
Erdogan this week, repeated its demands that Greece demilitarises its east Aegean islands adding that, their sovereignty could otherwise be challenged by Turkey. Since Mistotakis' visit to the US, Turkey sent an exploratory vessel to the Aegean and Ankara has increased refugee flows to Greece, an ANI report reads.
"Greece will not tolerate aggressive behaviour, revisionist rhetoric, and actions which amount to violations of Greek sovereign rights and Greek sovereignty. I think it is up to Turkey to change its behaviour. We've never been the ones pushing the boundary in terms of aggressiveness, but we are very confident that we have the ability to defend ourselves should the need arise. And we're also very confident that we have allies that support us: the European Union and the United States," Mitsosakis told Reuters.
