Greece is not able to stomach the crucial role Turkey plays in its region and its immediate surroundings in the context of ensuring peace and stability, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said early Sunday.
Greece maintains a provocative and adversarial attitude toward Turkey while talking about dialogue, the ministry said in a written statement.
The ministry’s statement came after Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias said Friday that, "Turkey continues to threaten Greece with war, it continues to violate our sovereignty and sovereign rights, it continues to illegally occupy the territory of the Republic of Cyprus, it continues to violate its maritime zones, it continues to shelter the Muslim Brotherhood."
Greece has often been embroiled in tensions with neighboring Turkey over a range of issues, from competing claims over hydrocarbon resources in the Aegean Sea to the demilitarization of islands. Moreover, Greece's burgeoning arms program is designed to counter the protection of Turkish interests in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Turkey maintains that it has been unfairly excluded from access to Mediterranean mineral resources and denies that it helped migrants gather at the Greek border last year.
The ministry, on the other hand, said Athens was attempting to compete with Turkey in almost all matters and was opting for tension instead of cooperation.
It said Athens' call for dialogue contradicted its daily negative attitude toward Turkey and urged Greek officials to be sincere and honest.
Dendias called Turkey “the common denominator” of threats to stability in the region at a meeting in Athens with the foreign ministers of France, Egypt and the Greek Cypriot administration, Jean-Yves Le Drian, Sameh Shoukry and Nikos Christodoulides.
The four politicians hailed the "strategic nature" of their "excellent relations" after a quadripartite meeting.
The foreign ministers met in Athens and released a joint statement vowing to work together to tackle the "multifaceted challenges affecting peace, stability and security" in the region.
"We referred to the excellent relations among our respective States, in full accordance with International Law and the Law of the Sea, and stressed the strategic nature of our relationship, which lays the solid foundations for advanced cooperation," read the statement.
Greece and Turkey resumed high-level diplomatic talks in January for the first time in nearly five years to try and ease tension over long-standing boundary disputes in the Aegean Sea and Eastern Mediterranean. But they remain sharply at odds, and Greece has launched a multibillion-dollar military modernization program with large naval and air force orders from France and the United States.
The Greek parliament in October ratified a defense deal struck with France for the purchase of three French-made Belharra frigates, an agreement criticized by Turkey.
In September, Greece also announced that it was planning to buy another six Rafale fighter aircraft as tensions continue to flare with Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean.
The announcement of boosting military ties with France comes after Defense Minister Hulusi Akar stated recently that secondhand French Rafale jets will not change the power balance in the region.
While seeking to defend its fair share of maritime territory in the region, Ankara has decried recent provocative Greek moves such as violating treaties and pacts by issuing navigational alerts, militarizing islands in the Aegean Sea and illegally encroaching Turkey's continental shelf.
Turkey, which has the longest continental coastline in the Eastern Mediterranean, has rejected the maritime boundary claims of Greece and the Greek Cypriot administration, stressing that these excessive claims violate the sovereign rights of both Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots.
Ankara has, however, repeatedly stressed that it is in favor of resolving all outstanding problems in the region, including maritime disputes, through international law, good neighborly relations, dialogue and negotiations.
