Turkey’s serious threat to Greece: Turkish President Erdogan warned that Turkish missiles could hit Athens.
Erdogan said earlier this week that Ankara will not sit idly by if Greece continues to arm and send weapons to the islands in the Aegean Sea.
“Turkey’s missiles scared Athens,” Erdogan said, referring to the firing of a Turkish ballistic missile across the Black Sea in October. “It may hurt you, it will hurt Athens if you continue to send weapons to the islands that you received from the US.”
On the other hand, Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dandias compared Turkey to North Korea after the Turkish president warned that Turkish missiles could hit Athens in a further escalation of the war of words between the NATO allies.
“It is unacceptable and publicly shameful – threats of a missile attack against Greece by an allied country, a member of NATO,” Dandias said while attending the European Union meeting in Brussels. “The North Korean approach cannot and must not enter the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.”
The Bloomberg network reports that there is growing frustration in Turkey in view of what Ankara describes as a Greek military buildup in the islands close to Turkey.
Greece repeats and urges Turkey not to challenge Greece’s sovereignty over the Dodecanese Islands, a group of islands off the coast of Turkey, which also include Rhodes and Kos. These islands were annexed by Italy to Greece after World War II.