LAST UPDATE: 13:55
A new provocation has been made by Turkey, this time against the official mission of the Greek Foreign Minister on Wednesday night, a few hours before the Summit.
In particular, Turkey held for 20 minutes in the air the plane that transported the Greek Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nikos Dendias during his trip to Iraq.
The incident took place over the Turkish-Iraqi border, as Ankara refused to grant an overflight permit to the aircraft. The Greek aircraft was returning from Baghdad to Athens and the pilots had normally received the required permits from the Turkish authorities.
After 20 minutes, the aircraft resumed its normal course in the airspace of Turkey.
Turkish delinquency is on the table of the European Council
Brussels is ready for the second Summit in a month. The European Council will start at 15.00 (Brussels time).
As reported by ANA-MPA, Turkish delinquency will be high in the discussions after Ankara’s latest moves.
“The European Council will assess where we are” regarding the situation with Turkey, a European source told reporters, underlining “EU solidarity in Greece and Cyprus”. At the same time, the same source noted that “the president of the European Council is closely monitoring the situation.”
The Greek embassy in Ankara was ordered to deliver démarche to the Turkish Foreign Ministry over yesterday’s incident with the government aircraft, which transported Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias from Baghdad to Athens, according to diplomatic sources, as reported by ANA-MPA.
It should be noted that there was a previous damage to the government aircraft, due to which the visit to Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, was postponed.
According to diplomatic sources, the Turkish side, on its own initiative, provided explanations to our embassy in Ankara, before the démarche, attributing the incident to a technical error of the competent Turkish service.
The Greek embassy in Ankara will return to ensure that no such incident is repeated.