The Greek Foreign Minister criticized Turkey after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened Athens with ballistic missiles.
“It is unacceptable and universally condemned that missile threats against Greece come from an allied country that is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO),” Nikos Dendias said on Monday after arriving in Brussels for the meeting. foreign affairs of the European Union.
Dendias added, “North Korean tendencies cannot and should not join NATO.”
Speaking on Saturday during a meeting with young people in Samsun, in northern Turkey, Erdogan mentioned that Turkey had started producing its own short-range ballistic missiles called the Typhoon and said they were “frightening the Greeks.”
“(Greeks) are afraid that they can hit Athens, of course they will. If you don’t stay calm, if you try to buy things from the USA and other places (arm) the islands, then the country is as if Turkey should do something.”
Relations between the allies and NATO neighbors have long been strained, with the two sides divided over a number of issues, including territorial claims in the Aegean and energy exploration rights in the eastern Mediterranean. The two countries have been on the brink of war three times in the past half century.
