“Don’t look for fights with the Turkish people, don’t look for fights with Turkey.”



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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron on Saturday “not to seek a discussion with Turkey,” as tensions between the two countries rise over the situation in the eastern Mediterranean, AFP reports.

“Don’t look for fights with the Turkish people, don’t look for fights with Turkey,” Erdogan said in a televised speech in Istanbul, referring to Macron’s harsh criticism of Ankara over the Turkish-Greek oil exploration conflict. In the Mediterranean.

Emmanuel Macron and six EU counterparts on Thursday called on Turkey to end its policy of “confrontation” in the eastern Mediterranean and threatened European sanctions if Ankara continued to challenge the rights of Greece and Cyprus to explore gas in the area.

Macron also said that the Turkish government “behaves unacceptably today” and must “clarify its intentions.”

Erdogan on Saturday called on Greece to “stay away” from the “wrong” actions of countries like France in the eastern Mediterranean. France stepped up its military presence in the area last month.

“Mister Macron, you are not done with me!” The Turkish president told him, attacking him directly for the first time and telling his French counterpart by name.


Erdogan accused him of “lack of historical knowledge” and said that France “cannot teach humanity a lesson” to Turkey because of its colonial past in Algeria and its role in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

Turkey claims the right to exploit hydrocarbon deposits in a maritime area that Athens considers to be under its sovereignty. In recent weeks, the two countries have shown their muscles through belligerent declarations, military maneuvers and sending ships to the area.

France has clearly shown its support for Greece by deploying warships and fighter jets in the region, an initiative virulently denounced by the Turkish president, according to AFP.

Map of 2020 local elections. List of all candidates for county councils and mayors of the main cities of Romania



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