Sat 05 September 2020:
Turkey has the power to discard maps or documents imposed on the country, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said.
“They will understand that Turkey has political, economic, military might needed to cast off immoral maps and documents imposed by others,” Erdogan said on Saturday.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of Goztepe City Hospital in Istanbul, he said that the alliance established against Ankara knows what Turkey is capable of.
“At every opportunity, we express that Turkey is ready for an equal share as long as it is just and fair. But the problem is our counterparts do not recognise our rights,” he said, adding that “either they will understand this through political and diplomatic talks, or they will understand this through a painful experience.”
Erdogan’s made these remarks as tensions run high in the Eastern Mediterranean due to efforts by Greece and other countries to block Turkish energy exploration in the Eastern Mediterranean and deny its maritime territory.
Turkey, Turkish Cypriot forces to start military drill
In the meantime, forces of Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) will start an annual five-day military drill, Turkey’s Defence Ministry has said.
The drill in the TRNC the Martyr Captain Cengiz Topel Mediterranean Storm Exercise was named after a Turkish Air Force pilot martyred during Turkey’s peace operation after the inter-communal conflict on the island in 1964.
The ministry said in a statement on Saturday that the annual exercise is aimed at improving mutual training, cooperation, and interoperability between the Turkish Cypriot Peace Force Command and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus Security Forces Command.
The exercise will be held with air, naval, and land elements from Turkey, the statement added.
Making maximalist territorial claims based on small islands just kilometres away from Turkey, Greece and other countries have tried to box Turkey into its shoreline, although it has the longest coast on the Eastern Mediterranean.
Following the forcible 1963 division of the island of Cyprus by the Greek Cypriots, the Turkish Cypriots suffered under a campaign of ethnic violence.
In 1974, following a coup aiming at Cyprus’ annexation to Greece, Ankara had to intervene as a guarantor power. In 1983, the TRNC was founded.
For decades, there were talks to resolve the dispute, all which ended with failure. The latest, held with the participation of the guarantor countries – Turkey, Greece, and the UK – ended in 2017 in Switzerland.
Anadolu agency
