He stressed that Ankara will not stand idly by towards the arming of the Aegean Sea islands

Erdogan warns Greece: Turkish missiles could hit Athens

A military fighter of the Turkish Air Force.

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey's ballistic missile test had frightened Athens, adding that Ankara would not stand idly by if Greece continued to arm its islands in the Aegean Sea.

Turkey had tested a homemade short-range ballistic missile called "Typhoon (Hurricane)" over the Black Sea last October, and Turkey stated that the missile could hit targets at a distance of 561 kilometers (349 miles) within 456 seconds.

Bloomberg news agency quoted Erdogan as saying, “You say Typhoon and they feel fear. She must not stand still, she must do something.”

Turkey is increasingly frustrated by what it considers an increasing Greek military buildup on islands close to its coast and Western military support for Greece - a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) - with a dispute between the two countries over territory, and tensions between them have escalated over the past years with Turkey mobilizing freedom to claim sovereignty over potential hydrocarbon resources in the eastern Mediterranean.

Greece has repeatedly called on Turkey to stop questioning its sovereignty over the Dodecanese, a group of islands off the Turkish coast that includes Rhodes and Kos, which Italy ceded to Greece in the aftermath of World War II.

On the other hand, the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergey Vershinin, announced that Ankara is aware of the necessity of normalization and maintaining relations with Damascus, according to what was reported by the Russian news agency "Sputnik", yesterday.

"It seems that there is an understanding in Turkey on the need to normalize and maintain relations between Ankara and all neighboring countries in the region, including Syria," Vershinin told reporters after talks in Istanbul.

Judging by the reports, there is a connection between Ankara and Damascus.

I repeat, we support the normalization of relations.

He added, "As for the issues of organizing meetings at various levels, including at the highest levels, we proceed from the fact that this is a decision of two sovereign states, Turkey and Syria."

He continued, "As for the Syrian settlement, this issue was discussed in detail during the Istanbul talks, and we did so from the point of view of ensuring progress towards a sustainable and long-term settlement in Syria on the basis of UN Security Council Resolution No. 2254."

According to Vershinin, the parties talked about the necessity of fully restoring the territorial integrity of the Syrian Republic.

He added, “In this regard, we always support dialogue between Damascus and Kurdish representatives.

In the context of the bilateral relations between Turkey and Syria, we know that these relations are not easy, but we also see the need to reach a common denominator between these two important regional countries.

We advocate the normalization of relations based on the fact that this would be a good factor for ensuring stability and peace in the region.

Erdogan had stressed, during a phone call with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, the day before yesterday, "the need to cleanse northern Syria of the Kurdish forces," as he described it.

Erdogan stressed to the Russian president, "the necessity and priority of clearing the Syrian border with Turkey to a depth of at least 30 kilometers in the first stage, according to the Sochi agreement concluded in 2019," according to a statement issued by the Turkish presidency.

According to the Kremlin, the two officials discussed "the problem of resolving the conflict in Syria," on the basis of fulfilling the terms of the Russian-Turkish agreement of 2019.

"The defense and foreign policy bodies of the two countries will continue close contacts in this regard," the Russian presidency said in a statement.

On November 20, Turkey launched a series of air strikes targeting sites of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Iraq and the Syrian Democratic Forces, led by the Kurdish People's Protection Units in Syria, in an attack it said came in response to the Istanbul attack on November 13, which killed six people.

The two Kurdish parties denied any role in it.

Since then, Turkish threats to launch a ground attack against areas controlled by Kurdish forces in Syria have also increased, despite the rejection of Washington, which supports the Kurds, and Moscow, the main supporter of Damascus.

 Moscow: Ankara understands the need for normalization and maintaining relations with Syria.

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