MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th December, 2022) It is unacceptable for Turkey as a NATO member and, thus, Greek ally to threaten Greece with a missile strike, Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias said on Monday.
According to Turkish journalist Ragip Soylu, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated on Sunday that Greece is afraid of Turkish missiles, and a Tayfun ballistic missile could and would hit Athens, "unless you stay calm."
"It is unacceptable and fully condemnable for threats to be made for a missile strike against Greece from an ally country, member of the NATO alliance," Dendias said on the sidelines of the EU Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels.
The minister called Erdogan's statement a manifisestation of the "North Korea mindset" that should not be tolerated within NATO.
NATO allies Greece and Turkey have been at odds for decades, with the risk of an armed conflict arising several times. The disputed issues include competing territorial claims in the eastern Mediterranean, in particular in the region of the Aegean Sea, the Greek-Turkish divide in Cyprus, and the delimitation of maritime boundaries. Turkey has repeatedly accused Greece of deploying weapons on Aegean islands in violation of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.
In late August, a new round of tensions between the countries flared up when Greece allegedly used S-300 air defense systems to radar-lock Turkish air force F-16 fighters performing a reconnaissance mission west of the island of Rhodes. The Greek Defense Ministry denied Turkey's claims that Athens deployed its S-300s in Crete against Turkish F-16s.
In October, Ankara tested the domestically produced short-range ballistic Tayfun missile over the Black Sea. Erdogan called the test launch a signal, though without specifying to whom it was addressed.
