For three consecutive days the Turks have been claiming that our S-300 missiles stationed in Crete have targeted Turkish F-16 fighters, which Athens denies.
They are the same Soviet missiles that Cyprus bought from Russia 25 years ago and that it was forced to sell to Greece after the threats it received from Turkey.

“Let me clarify once more,” the Turkish Defense Minister said recently , that “our forces will never retreat when under threat.”

The matter is extremely serious. If Greece did target Turkey’s F16s hen that was surely a significant defensive action that was obviously undertaken in order to put an end to large-scale Turkish violations and provocations.

But if something like this did not happen then Turkey’s insistence that we targeted their planes constitutes a dangerous escalation of Turkish rhetoric and provocations.

At the same time, their persistence is revealing: It seems that the S-300s are an obstacle to their plans and they will try to force us to sell them or give them away, perhaps to NATO.

In other words, to repeat what happened with Cyprus, with the difference that Cyprus sold them to Greece.

Turkey’s position is a dangerous, radical extension of the actions it has been taking in its challenging Greece.

This is not just talk, not merely puffs of air, but an attempt to weaken the defense capabilities of Greece. To what end?

And really, what audacity! They themselves bought and may buy more S-400 missiles from Russia, and despite the furious reactions of the USA – even during the Trump administration – they refuse to return them.

They are also behaving like a Trojan horse in NATO now regarding Ukraine by refusing to coordinate their actions with the alliance.

On top of that, while they are asking to buy new technology F-16s they have the audacity to raise the issue of S-300s – older technology missiles – in order to weaken Greece’s national defense?