“Now we have started producing our own missiles,” Erdogan stressed in a speech in Samsun, in the north of the country. “Obviously producing them scares the Greeks. When you say ‘Tayfun’, the Greek freaks out and says, ‘It will hit Athens.’ Of course it will.”
“Tayfun” (“typhoon” in Turkish) is a short-range missile developed in Turkey. Tested in October over the Black Sea, the missile can strike targets up to 500 kilometers away, twice the range of missiles currently in Turkey’s arsenal.
“If you don’t keep calm, if you try to buy something [lai sevi apbruņotu] here and there, from America to these islands, a country like Turkey will not be an indifferent passerby. He will have to do something,” Erdogan said.
In recent months, Turkish leaders have become increasingly vocal against Greece, accusing Athens of building what Ankara says is a military presence in the Greek Aegean islands off the Turkish coast.
In another thinly veiled threat, Erdogan said: “We may suddenly appear one night when the time is right.”
Last week, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlit Çavuşoğlu warned Greece to end the militarization of the Aegean islands or Ankara “will take the necessary measures on the ground”.
Although Greece and Turkey are NATO allies, disagreements between the two countries have persisted for several decades on a number of issues, including the maritime border, the continental shelf and Cyprus.
This year, Greece has urged its Western allies to get Turkey to end its aggressive rhetoric, warning of another similar situation in Ukraine.
