Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar is trying again to maintain the temperature of the Greek-Turkish relations close to boiling point, stressing that “60 ships of the Turkish fleet are ready” and noting that “on land, at sea, in the air, our aircraft are ready to defend our law”.
Speaking at the military academy in Ankara, Akar urged the military academy students to delve even deeper into the Navtex issue, as “a new policy of sovereignty now being pursued in the Eastern Mediterranean”.
“There is a law of the sea, there is international law. If you try to limit a country with 1870 kilometers of coastline to your own borders and say ‘everything is mine’, then there will be a problem”.
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“Let Greece come to talk, to meet. Through dialogue, through negotiations, solutions with logical and smart ways of action will emerge and will be accepted. Apart from that, with selfishness, bad manners and saying ‘what I say will always happen’, no, you can’t force that to be accepted”, Hulusi Akar added.
The Turkish Defense Minister insisted that Turkey would continue to protect its rights and interests at sea, as well as those of the Turkish Cypriots.
Referring, in particular, to the Cyprus issue, he reminded that “the guarantors of Cyprus are the United Kingdom, Greece and Turkey” and added: “There are two societies there, there is sovereignty of two communities there”.
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