Greece challenged NATO by intercepting Turkish jets: Erdoğan

Türkiye's president on Aug. 30 slammed Greece over the harassment of Turkish jets carrying out reconnaissance missions over the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean, calling it a "hostile act."

"Greece has challenged NATO and its allies by increasing its hostile attitude, which started with harassing our airspace and aircraft and escalated to the level of S-300 radar lockdown," Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said, ahead of a celebration concert for the centenary of Türkiye's Victory Day at the presidential complex in Ankara.

"Unfortunately, we see that the Greek politicians, who dragged their own people and country to disaster a century ago, are still insisting on the same mistake today," President Erdoğan said.

"As we always say, Greece is not our equal or interlocutor in any political, economic or military way. We know the true intention of those, who try to waste our country's time and energy by using Greece today, as was the case a century ago. The recent developments have demonstrated this fact to everyone in an undeniable clarity,' he added. 

Stating that the US, which is the largest force within NATO, supposedly considered it a threat to its own aircrafts that Türkiye purchased the S-400 systems completely for its own defensive needs as had been repeatedly expressed, President Erdoğan said: "Our said step was encountered with acts, including the nondelivery of the F-35 jets, whose down payment we already made, being subjected to embargoes over defense industry products and even more. We are now curious to see how the US will respond to Greece activating the S-300 systems against a NATO air force. We are now curious to see how the US will respond to Greece activating the S-300 systems against a NATO air force. On top of that, The US offered...