ATHENS – In what was seen as pre-election heat in provocations coming from an embattled President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to arouse his nationalist base, Greece’s New Democracy government it will defend the country’s rights and seas.

Greece does not provoke or threaten but instead follows international laws and the United Nations Law of the Sea – which Turkey doesn’t – diplomatic sources not named told the state-run Athens-Macedonia News Agency AMNA.

That was in response to growing taunts and threats from Turkey, leading the Greek officials to say that, “We reject in their entirety the baseless and unfounded Turkish arguments as we have done through our letters to the Secretary General of the UN.”

They also underlined that, “We have repeatedly responded to the absurdity with calmness and with legally substantiated arguments,” and declared that Turkey must realize that its “emerging profile.” regionally and globally is negative.

“It is the ’emerging profile’ of a country that follows and implements a revisionist policy, threatens with war, challenges every rule of international law, blackmails and creates rifts in the alliances it belongs to, at a particularly critical moment for world peace,” they also noted.

Later, Erdogan piled on the pressure in saying that Turkey will not stand by while Greece takes actions that threaten its security and will respond “both legally and in the field,”the Turkish pro-government newspaper The Daily Sabah reported.

“Greece’s allegations that Türkiye violates its airspace are baseless. Actually, Greece violates our airspace and increases tensions,” he said, adding, “of course, our air force and coast guard do not and will not leave these hostile actions unanswered.”

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is also facing a re-election challenge with polls reportedly coming as soon as early April, a month before the May 14 in elections, although Greece could see a second under a change in electoral laws passed by the previous ruling Radical Left SYRIZA.