Greece forcing Erdogan’s pirates to pull out of Aegean Sea

Mustafa Kamel

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is falling back on plans to drill for natural gas in the Eastern Mediterranean, a short time after Greece warned against these plans.

Turkish drilling ships returned to the Turkish coast along with the military ships that accompanied them in the area, for fear of European escalation against Turkey.

Outright withdrawal

Ankara announced earlier that it would conduct a seismic survey in the area, in its bid to decide whether there are gas reserves off the coast of a Greek island.

However, Turkey pulled its military ships out of the area on July 26, after Greece warned Turkey against conducting the seismic survey, according to the Greek newspaper, Greek City Times.

The Turkish embassy in Washington ran a comment on Twitter, in which it said a Turkish ship had already started drilling for gas off the coast of the Greek island.

Nonetheless, the embassy removed the tweet very quickly after this.

The official Turkish news agency, Anadolu, said on July 25 that a Turkish drilling ship had started a new research mission in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The ship, it added, is one of six in the world qualified for conducting seismic researches.

Greece said on July 23 that it would take whatever action necessary to defend its sovereign rights.

Greece called during two recent high-level European meetings for imposing sanctions on Turkey.

Meanwhile, Cyprus called for the presence of a unified European response to Ankara’s actions in the region.

The Greek prime minister said the European Union could not fall silent against Turkey’s violations against two union member states, in reference to his country and Cyprus.

Alert

Greece raised it military alert level in the Eastern Mediterranean in response to Turkish plans to drill for gas in the region.

It deployed warships in the Aegean Sea. Athens also said that it is prepared for confrontations in cases of any Turkish violations in the sea.

The Greek army said a month ago that it is on alert. This came a short time after Turkey said it would drill for gas near the coast of the Greek island.