ANKARA – Repeating claims without any proof, Turkey said a suspected member of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) was a terrorist trained at a Greek camp was planning an attack.

Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu tweeted that the suspect had been trained in Lavrio, in southeastern Attica but didn’t provide his name nor anything to back up what previously said were wild, false claims.

Soylu earlier Greece as a “training center for terrorists,” with the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashing out on a number of fronts as he faces a tough re-election campaign in 2023.

Sevgili Kılıçdaroğlu;
Üzücü bir haber daha:
HDPKK’nın, Lavrion Kampı’ndan Türkiye’ye, büyükşehirlere eylem için gönderilen
Delil kod Hüsamettin Tanrıkulu,
İstanbul ve Diyarbakır Emniyeti tarafından yakalandı.

Sadece savunduğun HDPKK’nın değil Yunanistan’ın da ilgiye ihtiyacı var pic.twitter.com/YcV4PprZBz

— Süleyman Soylu (@suleymansoylu) September 4, 2022

The reiterated assertion, said Kathimerini, was seen by Greece’s New Democracy government – Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis will also seek re-election 2023 – as just being provocative and adding to tensions.

Turkey’s pro-government newspaper The Daily Sabah, which acts as a propaganda mouthpiece for Erdogan, said Greece violated Turkish airspace and waters 1,123 times so far in 2022 although it’s Turkey that has violated Greek airspace and its waters.

Turkey earlier also said that Greek missile defense systems locked on to Turkish F-16’s accompanying US B-52 bombers in a NATO mission and said it had proof but never provided any, Greece denying that claim too.