In an official note, Greek Foreign Minister Nicos Dendias condemned the act of intimidation suffered by an Army helicopter, which had Defense Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos on board and the Chief of Staff of the Greek Army, General Konstantinos Floros, by Turkish fighters, on the Aegean Sea last May 3.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs qualified the action as an "unacceptable act" and called on Turkey to "operate within the framework of the good neighborhood like the other countries of the area, respecting international law rather than systematically violating it".
According to a military source, the minister and the chief of staff were making a Sunday visit to the military outposts on the Greek islands in the southeast of the Aegean Sea.
According to the Greek news agency (Ana), two Turkish F-16 fighters flew over the islet of Inoussses from an altitude of 3.500 feet, from which the Greek helicopter took off. Shortly thereafter these same planes flew over Agathonissi, another Greek islet, dropping to 1.700 feet above sea level.
- Scramble Hunting greeks are frequent in the sea space that sapara the two countries. Athens often accuses its neighbor and ally within NATO of violating its air and sea space.
These interceptions are sometimes the cause of serious accidents: the last occurred in April 2018 when a Greek fighter pilot, Captain Giorgos Baltadoros of the 331th Air Force squadron, was killed in the crash of his plane, a Mirage 2000-5, in the Aegean, on the return from an interception mission of Turkish planes.
Photo: Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri
