Dendias: Turkish remarks on Greek-French deal ‘completely unacceptable’
Turkey’s remarks that the Greek-French defense agreement threatens to harm the NATO alliance are “completely unacceptable,” Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias said on Friday.
“If Turkey is bothered by these agreements, it can only mean that it sees itself as a potential aggressor,” Dendias said, in a statement after meeting with his Hungarian counterpart, Péter Szijjártó.
“Our agreement with France is a purely defense agreement. It is not directed against anyone,” Dendias said.
“I signed a similar agreement with the United Arab Emirates about a year ago. In the context of these other defense priorities of these agreements, I would like to say that the Turkish allegations are completely unacceptable,” he added.
Earlier on Friday, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgic slammed what he called “Greece’s maximalist maritime jurisdiction and airspace claims” and went on to describe the pact between France and Greece as a bilateral military alliance formed against fellow NATO member Turkey “in a way that harms the NATO alliance.”
Dendias and Szijjártó also discussed migration in view of recent developments in Afghanistan.
“Greece will not accept any attempt of instrumentalization of migration,” Dendias noted, calling on Turkey to respect the EU-Turkey declaration on the matter.
[Ekathimerini, AMNA]
