— Doesn’t this headquarters say everything? These days, as we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the great victory, we tell Greece directly and clearly that you saw how painful the price of the adventure that began a century ago was. We strongly recommend that you learn from history and avoid new adventures that will lead to disappointment.” said Mr Akar when quoted back to Turkish claims of “Greek oppression” during NATO exercises, something that Greece has repeatedly denied.

Zafer masasidandan Atina’ya warns! Fatih Chekirge wrote https://t.co/rzaODjg23d pic.twitter.com/iVwCOIFe7G

— Hürriyet.com.tr (@Hurriyet) August 26, 2022

“On July 2, a request was received from the Americans to conduct NATO exercises. And they wanted our fighters to protect their aircraft. Their requests were as follows: 4 F-16s and 1 tanker aircraft … We said OK, and the flights began. And these flights were reported to all NATO countries. I think they were updated on July 2, and the activity occurred on August 22. That’s when Greece changed its flight route to the islands in accordance with “civil status,” he noted, adding:

“He wants to take a course over these islands. He wants to bring NATO here, that is, he wants to violate Lausanne. That’s why they change itinerary at the last minute. Then they come and spot our planes for 3 or 5 minutes. When asked why he did this, he replied: “We were not informed about this flight.” We rated it as an “unidentified aircraft,” they say.

What do you mean, unknown, when it comes to NATO exercises, right? Unidentified plane? On August 24, we had aircraft assigned to conduct NATO training on the Nexus Ace. They went there and harassed them, blocked them with radar for 5 minutes. It cannot be that it is not known that our planes are on a NATO mission. This cannot be in NATO. Flight reports are published months in advance, records are kept, articles are written. However, on August 22 and 24, they pursued our aircraft, which were on duty in NATO, and blocked them on radar.

Continuing in provocative tones, Mr. Akar brought back the Turkish narrative about the demilitarization of the islands:

“We say that you have 3,000 islands, but you still get under our noses. You militarize the islands, claiming 10 miles of airspace and 6 miles of territorial waters. You are right under our noses and say that we are expansionists! and in Cyprus, a few days after the announcement of a major natural gas discovery in Section 6 of the Cyprus EEZ:

“We are really sincere that the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean are a common workplace between the two countries, and we always ask for it. Unfortunately, we do not see any reaction. In the Eastern Mediterranean, in Cyprus, we will not allow our rights and interests or the rights and interests of our Cypriot brothers to be violated, and we will not allow a fait accompli here. The calculations were made there, which our research ship is currently working on. Our frigate TCG GEDİZ accompanies you to the Yörükler-1 area. We hope they don’t make mistakes. Everyone knows that if they make a mistake, we will repay many times over, and everyone should have understood this.”

“We say that the useless work of armaments has begun in Greece. The money of the Greek people is being spent on weapons and equipment that have expired. Used planes, used tanks, used weapons, whatever they have, France sells to Greece and makes money. Although you can’t get away from it. If you’re trying to defend Greece this way, it’s too much to defend. You don’t need so many weapons to protect yourself. But if it is against Turkey, then it is very little!” concluded the Turkish Defense Minister.

Finally, speaking to other journalists and referring to today’s headlines in the Turkish press, Akar noted that the Kurdish refugee center in Lavrion is a “terrorist hideout.” In particular, he said: “Greek politicians shamelessly say “No to the Lavrio camp”, they deny it. This camp is a FETO protector and a PKK/YPG and DHKP-C hideout but they say “we don’t have that”. This also got into the press, there are statements by terrorists, everything is clear and obvious that this camp has turned into a terrorist camp.”