Defense Minister Hulusi Akar on Saturday urged Greece to take the necessary measures to stick to the demilitarized status of the Aegean islands, as stipulated by international law and treaties.
Akar stated Greece violates worldwide law and treaties via arming the Aegean islands, emphasizing that not handiest do those actions violate international law and the neighborly friendship between Turkey and Greece.
“I am awaiting my Greek colleague to take essential measures on this and different issues inside the framework of our honest, optimistic and true family members,” Akar advised reporters following an assembly with the pinnacle brass of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) on the Ministry of National Defense in Ankara.
“We are in favor of true neighborly family members. Therefore, we expect all our friends to behave inside the same way,” Akar said.
Akar said that Turkey is working to solve the Aegean, Mediterranean, and Cyprus issues in a nonviolent manner through dialogue.
He underlined, but that “it’s widely acknowledged with the aid of all and sundry that Turkey is extraordinarily dedicated to the protection of our rights and interests under international law.”
Greece and Turkey were at loggerheads over the demarcation of the maritime border inside the Aegean. A decades-long dispute between Turkey and Greece over the uninhabited Aegean islets brought the 2 international locations to the brink of armed war in 1996.
Energy exploration in the Eastern Mediterranean, specifically across the divided island of Cyprus, is one of the contentious troubles between the 2 international locations.
The geopolitical component of energy – element professionals and policymakers describe as an assurance for connection and collaborative dynamic in the long term – has up to now proved otherwise about the Eastern Mediterranean. Turkey has been present in the region with seismic survey vessels and drillships with a viewtof shielding its own interests and the rights of the Turkish Cypriots.
Turkey and Turkish Cypriots vouch for an equitable share of the sources within the respective region conditioned upon the peace development inside the island. The political warfare on the island, which has not been resolved on account that 1974, is considered a primary motive impeding the exploitation of the assets of the various local people.
Cyprus has been divided in view that 1974 while a Greek Cypriot coup accompanied a long time of violence towards the island’s Turks and Ankara’s intervention as guarantor electricity. The island has visible an on-and-off peace method in the latest years, such as the collapse of a 2017 initiative in Switzerland below the guarantor countries Turkey, Greece, and the U.K.
