Editorial Ta Nea: Turkey’s provocations must not be underestimated

A steadily unfavourable development over the last days is the exceedingly bellicose provocation of Greece by Turkey.

These provocations have reached an unprecedented extreme.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s threat of a missile strike against Greece is the most hostile pronouncement from Ankara since Greece and Turkey came to the brink of war in the 1996 Imia crisis.

Certainly, the vicissitudes in Turkey’s aggressiveness cannot change or determine Greece’s stance.

Athens, however, must not for a moment underestimate Turkey’s hostile stance and must be constantly on alert, both diplomatically and in terms of its deterrent force.

These two dimensions of Greece’s defence must be based on the unswerving position that our country is a pillar of stability and a member of the EU and NATO, but also that we are autonomously decisive in confronting whoever threatens our territorial integrity.

With a stable front against revisionism and by exerting pressure in all international forums, we shall not allow our country to become a rhetorical vehicle in Turkey’s presidential election, or a field of revisionism and regional turbulence.

Greece’s entire strategy presupposes national unity and proactive diplomacy.

Moreover, Athens must simultaneously rebut Ankara’s outrageous argument that Greece, with the militarisation of its islands, is provoking it.

Underestimating Turkey by viewing its actions merely as an electoral ploy ignores Ankara’s expansionist “Blue Motherland” doctrine and can harm our country.

A high state of alert is the only option.