With a hail of new statements, Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar accuses Greece of expansionism against Turkey.
"In other words, you with 3,000 islands in the Aegeanarm under our noses and you will accuse us of expansionism. That doesn't make sense. We want third countries to see and understand that. There's something that's been going on since 1832 and continues. There's a process. They covered the whole Aegean. Who's the expansionist? Here we talk about a country that has expanded five or seven times since its founding. Who's an expansionist?" said Mr. Akar.
"They have significantly increased the defence budget. They've tripled it. We tell them don't get tired of what you're doing, it's very little for the Turkish Armed Forces," the Turkish Defence Minister said, and continued.
"In Article 12 of the Treaty of Lausanne and Article 14 of the Treaty of Paris it is said that these islands were granted to Greece on the condition of demilitarization. They're islands with demilitarized status. There are 23 islands of which they militarized 16 and come up with unserious arguments. They went and put airports, tanks, mortars. So that doesn't give us the right to self-defense? Isn't placing weapons under our noses a threat to our country? What will happen if we react? Doesn't the sovereignty of these islands become questionable because of militarization?" he said.
In his statements Akar accused Greece of dropping baseless charges.
"They make baseless statements. Now they keep talking about neo-Ottomanism. In our conversations, in our meetings, there is no such thing in our requests. We say international law, the treaties of Lausanne and Paris. We say that and we demand our rights," turkey's defence minister said.