According to a diplomatic Greece source, the number of Turkish violations in the Greece airspace has abruptly ceased after the downing of the Russian Sukhoi Su-24. Previously, the registered violations have been thousands per year.
© AP Photo/ Emrah Gurel
The number of violations against the Greek airspace by Turkey has decreased dramatically after the Tuesday’s downing of the Russian bomber. The information was cited by RIA Novosti. Before that violations of the Greece air domain were seen on a daily basis and amounted to thousands per year.
The last time a Turkish warplane was spotted in Greek airspace was on November 25, when six jets, two of them carrying weapons, entered the neighbor’s aerial domain.
Just for 2014, the incidents of Turkey violating Greece airspace were 2,244. And from January to October this year they were 1,233. In November, before the downing of the Russian jet, there were 50 registered incidents of this kind.
The question was raised a few times on NATO meetings by Athens but the result was the continuing testing of Athens’ patience.
When Turkey shot down the Russian bomber on Tuesday, Greek Foreign Minister Nikas Kotzias expressed solidarity with Russia in a phone conversation with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.
“Athens agrees with the Russian president’s assessment on Ankara’s hostile actions, which are contrary to the goals of the anti-ISIS coalition,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said, as reported by RIA Novosti.
Yoana
SouthFront