(by Andrea Pinto) Recep Tayyip Erdogan: "We said we would respond to any attack and we responded as needed (the reference is the collision of the Greek frigate Limos against the Turkish military ship Kemal Reis ed) and that they would pay dearly for it. If this is the case, we will respond again, because our research ship Oruc Reis will continue its activity ”.
The Turkish president shows that he does not want to go back on the exploration of gas and oil in the Aegean. "Those are the spiritual borders of Turkey ", argues Erdogan.
However, Erdogan spoke with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel and with the President of the European Council, Charles Michel: "We agreed to resume a process as soon as the tension eases".
The accident. According to some Greek media, the Limnos frigate hit and damaged the Turkish warship Kemal Reis that was escorting the Oruc Reis off the coast between Rhodes and Crete. For the Turkish agency Eha, Kemal Reis intercepted and damaged the Greek ship, forcing it to return to port.
However, the Greek city times portal shows in some photos of the exercise carried out by the French Navy with the Greek one that the Limnos would be intact.
Emmanuel Macron sent a couple of rafale planes and the La Fayette frigate for a joint exercise with the Greek, Cypriot and Emirati armed forces. Erdogan thundered in this regard: "A country that does not even have a coast in the eastern Mediterranean. Let me be very clear: don't try to put on a show ".
Meanwhile Turkish drones fly over the island of Rhodes as Greek fighters and drones escort the Ankara research ship.
Yesterday the news came that Greece announced a military exercise in the same area where an Ankara exploration ship escorted by Erdogan's frigates operates. Joint exercise with Cyprus and the United Arab Emirates which have already sent 4 F-16s to Souda on the island of Crete.
Between tomorrow and Thursday, the tension in the eastern Mediterranean will rise when the military exercise begins. Athens has issued a notice to mariners about the exercise area south east of Crete, in the area of Rhodes and Castelrosso. The same area of the Navtext issued by the Turks, where the research ship Oruc Reis operates around the island of Castelrosso. There is also a Turkish frigate ready for combat in the area.
The Turkish ship Oruc Reis intends to explore in the waters overlooking the Greek islet Castelrosso, 580 kilometers from mainland Greece, but only 2 km from the Turkish Kas. Ankara claims a space that corresponds, in part, to what it had in the Ottoman Empire. Erdogan would thus not incorporate the Sevres Treaty of 1920 and the Lausanne Pact of 1923 which reduced those borders, and he did not recognize the Paris Agreement of 1947 which took away the Dodecanese from Italy by handing it over to Athens.
Germany is the only one trying to mediate diplomatically. In these days the German Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, is expected first in Athens and then in Ankara, while on 27 and 28 August the heads of diplomacy of the European Union will meet to discuss Turkish exploration and drilling, judged illegal by Greece and Cyprus.
But in the Mediterranean other nations intervene in the confrontation in an indirect way. Israel has supplied Heron drones to Greece while the Greek shipyards Onex Neorion and Israel Shipyards have recently signed a cooperation agreement for the construction of corvettes for the Hellenic Navy.