Turkey flexes muscle over Aegean, Cyprus

Keeping up the tension in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Friday sparked controversy by underscoring Ankara's military might as his foreign minister announced that the country will start exploring for natural resources around Cyprus.

"If you don't have enough military, political and economic might, you should know that nobody will take you seriously," Erdogan said during a visit to a military academy in Ankara. "And we saw this during the peace operation in Cyprus and the tension in the Aegean," he said, referring to Turkey's invasion of Cyprus in 1974.

Meanwhile, speaking after a meeting with Turkish-Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Turkey will start drilling around the ethnically divided island because the Greek-Cypriot government shunned Ankara's calls for it to safeguard the...