Turkey test-fired a locally made, short-range ballistic missile, dubbed Tayfun, which means “typhoon” in Turkish, over the Black Sea in October. The missile can hit targets at a distance of 561 kilometres in 456 seconds, according to Turkey.
“You say ‘Tayfun’ and they’re scared, they say it’ll hit Athens,” Erdoğan said. “Yeah, of course it’ll hit it. If you don’t stay calm — if you try to send weapons you got from the US to the islands — a country like Turkey certainly won’t go around picking pears. It has to do something.”
Turkey is increasingly frustrated by what it sees as a growing Greek military build-up on islands close to its coastline and Western military support to fellow Nato member Greece, with which Ankara has long-running territorial conflicts. These frictions have escalated in recent years as Turkey mobilised its navy to claim rights over potential hydrocarbon resources in the eastern Mediterranean.
Greece has repeatedly called on Turkey to stop questioning its sovereignty over the Dodecanese — a group of islands off the Turkish coast including Rhodes and Kos — that were ceded to Greece by Italy following World War 2.
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The obnoxious Erdogan reminds me of Putin, although not nearly as murderous (yet) – a bully and with lots of blood on his hands. The more and louder these vile dictators and psychopaths rattle the war scenario and threats, the more the countries at the receiving end will take measures to protect themselves and look to common security with neighbours. Those islands belong to Greece and they have every right to defend them against threats etc. If the new norm, following what the evil, mass-murderer and deranged Putin is doing, is to ignore, re-draw international boundaries and tear up agreements, then the world is in for terrible times – war, destruction, wastelands, mass killings etc. which will herald WW3. Pathetic little men with huge, false and brittle egos and deluded visions of grandeur are the biggest threat in the world today. They have to be stopped!
Spot on ! The sooner (not soon enough !) all surrounding countries (including European ones) of Russia equip themselves with nuclear missiles, the better. And … that includes places like Japan, Australia, New Zealand etc ! That should be aimed directly at Russia … and the people of Russia should be informed that should the increasingly bellicose Putin lose all his marbles, they will all pay the price. Remember how he (the Trump-like one who thinks he owns the world) said amidst threats directed as the ‘west’ at the start of his war on Ukraine – he knows where London, Berlin and Paris is ? Not sure if he mentioned NY also! This is one seriously delusional individual who will make any number of fellow Russians pay the price for his lunacy. Besides the thousands of Ukrainian lives he has taken, he has bizzarely given up thousands of Russian soldiers lives, in pursuit of his lunacy.
Kanu,Think CLEARLY and SOBERLY about your comment. It means annihilation of the human species.
Well said!
The World without Conflict is a FANTASY.
I wonder if Erdogan knows that the same missiles can be fired from Greece and hit Istanbul?
What an idiot!