“I think they’d hear us from Greece if we shout from Kaş,” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told journalists when asked how Türkiye would respond to Greece’s arming of the Aegean islands.
Türkiye has recently declared an area between Kaş and Fethiye in the south, as well as several other areas in the Aegean Sea, as “marine parks” in a move that angered Greece, which has consistently contested Türkiye’s maritime borders.
Erdoğan answered questions while returning from Kyrgyzstan, where he attended a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) on Tuesday. In remarks published on Wednesday, he said Türkiye sought to advance relations with Greece on the basis of good neighborliness. “We have always been sincere and constructive, but this was not reciprocated most of the time,” Erdoğan said.
Türkiye opposes any Greek military deployment on the eastern Aegean islands, arguing that they should remain demilitarized under the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne and the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty. Greece, however, cites a “threat” from Türkiye and says it has the right under international law to defend its sovereignty. The two countries have recently been at odds over the declaration of marine parks to preserve marine biodiversity, with both accusing each other of attempting to violate their maritime borders.
