Greek minister warns NATO on Turkish 'threats'

Greek minister warns NATO on Turkish 'threats'

ATHENS
Greek minister warns NATO on Turkish threats

Greek Defense Minister Nikos Dendias has warned that NATO should focus on alleged "threats" posed by Türkiye.

"I assume that it will not be good at all for NATO and would not be good at all for the U.S. to encourage Türkiye to create a huge problem in the eastern front of NATO," Dendias told Fox News in an interview published on Feb. 1.

His remarks come as Türkiye relaunched its "Blue Homeland" military exercises in the Black, Mediterranean and Aegean seas last month. Greece has long viewed the drills as exacerbating maritime disputes between the two nations.

"This [is a] new Turkish neo-imperialist, neo-Ottoman approach," Dendias said. "It started appearing somewhere in the first decade of the 21st century… which, in essence, claims that half of the Greek islands in the Aegean belong to Türkiye."

Dendias said Greece’s tense relations with Türkiye have made its defensive posture in NATO "unique" because it has "forced Athens to be on top of its defense spending."

A decades-old feud over the Cyprus island between Greece and Türkiye, both of which have been members of NATO since 1952, has plagued the alliance for over half a century.

The Greek minister said U.S. President Donald Trump could use his rapport with Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to "whisper in his ear to remind him that international law and international [rules] of the sea, is a way of life in this modern world."

In response, the Turkish embassy in Washington pointed to recent remarks by Defense Minister Yaşar Güler.

"Our country, located at the very heart of a region surrounded by conflicts and disputes, consistently emphasizes its commitment to international law and peace in preventing tensions and resolving crises," Güler said ahead of the "Blue Homeland" exercises.

"The efforts to portray Türkiye's determination to protect its rights and interests in the Blue Homeland as ‘historical expansionism and aggression’ are nothing more than a futile attempt to disregard the rights granted to Türkiye by international law."