Friday, January 8, 2016

Turkish Fighter Jets Violate Greek Airspace Over Aegean Sea… Again

Turkish Air Force F-16

© Flickr/ UK Ministry of Defence
Europe

A formation of four Turkish fighter jets violated Greek air space in the northeastern Aegean Thursday, the Greek Defense Ministry said, adding that two of the aircraft were armed.

The intruders strayed into Greek airspace three times and on each occasion Greek air defenders scrambled interceptors to identify the Turkish jets and chase them off, the Athens-based daily newspaper Kathimerini reported on Friday.
“Ankara’s provocative actions are meant to tell the world that Turkey does not recognize the existing air and sea borders in the Eastern Mediterranean,”Greece’s former deputy military chief of staff Frangoulis Frangos told the Moscow-based newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta.
Turkey refuses to recognize a 10-mile airspace zone around Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, which led to at least 1,300 airspace violations in 2015, 31 of which took place over Greek territory.
Turkey has a long history of straying into Greek airspace, with incidents rising over the past several years to 2,224 in 2014.
Intruding flights over Greek territory more than doubled in 2015, compared to the previous year.

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