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Greece has denied a NATO statement that Athens and Ankara agreed to hold talks to prevent military incidents in the eastern Mediterranean. The information that Greece and Turkey “agreed in the so-called ‘technical talks’ to reduce tensions in the eastern Mediterranean” with the mediation of NATO “does not correspond to reality,” said the Greek Foreign Ministry.
They are ready for such talks, but only if all Turkish ships withdraw from Greece’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). This is reported by the dpa news agency with the advice of the Foreign Ministry.
The denial came shortly after an announcement by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg that the two NATO states were ready for talks to resolve the conflict within the alliance framework. A NATO spokeswoman did not comment on Athens’ remarks at the request of the dpa. She only noted that there was already a technical meeting between Turkey and Greece on Thursday at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
Greece accuses Turkey of illegal gas exploration
The background to this is the dispute between NATO partners over natural gas in the Mediterranean, which has been escalating for weeks. Greece accuses Turkey of illegally exploring deposits off the Greek islands. However, the Ankara government rejects the accusations. It takes the position that the waters in which the natural gas test is being drilled belong to the Turkish continental shelf.
