Greek-Egypt joint military excercise has Turkey going bananas

[catgeorge]

Egypt-Greece joint military exercise “illegal” warns Turkey

CAIRO: Greece’s joint military exercise with Egypt, Medusa 5, has brought an angry response from Turkey.
The exercise, which began on Monday on the Greek island of Rhodes and ends today, included joint naval operations and search-and-rescue drills. Egyptian naval and air forces took part.
In a written statement, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry alleged the exercise is illegal, citing the 1947 Treaty of Paris, which prohibits any kind of military education activities on Rhodes.
The island was informally united with Greece after World War II on the condition that it would remain demilitarized.
“Therefore, this … is an open breach of international law,” the statement claimed.
Turkey and Greece came to the brink of war as recently as 1996, when a dispute over the ownership of uninhabited islets known as Imia in Greek and Kardak in Turkish threatened to escalate out of control, before US diplomatic intervention calmed the situation. But that territorial dispute — along with the wider disagreements over sovereignty in and around the Aegean Sea.
According to the Anadolu news agency, the statement said Turkey had conveyed warnings to the Greek Embassy in Ankara and reminded them of the importance of avoiding unilateral actions that could increase tensions in the Aegean Sea.
Rhodes is located in the southeastern part of the sea, close to the Turkish coast. In July, the Greek coastguard opened fire on a Turkish commercial ship in international waters off the island’s coast.
“In this framework, we stress our expectation that Greece will avoid hostile acts and acts against international law, and we invite third parties not to be partners to these kinds of violations by Greece,” the statement added.
Observers from four countries — America, Italy, Cyprus and the UAE — have been invited to Medusa 5.
Meanwhile, Greek Minister of National Defense Panos Kammenos told the press on October 1 that Greece is planning to hold joint military exercises with Cyprus, Egypt and Israel — a move that many suggest was intended as a message to Ankara that major regional powers support Greece’s stance against Turkey, which Greece claims is stealing its right to gas in the Eastern Mediterranean.

http://www.arabnews.com/node/1187916/middle-east

Anything to make Turks go nuts is good news.

[Kamal900]

So, Egyptians and the Greeks are forging military alliance against their common foe as they did back in the 6th century BCE against the Persians and their Arab allies:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle...usium_(525_BC)

But rather against the Persians, it's Turkey which had been meddling with the affairs of their neighbours for far too long now. Good.