Imia, behind the scenes

January 31, 1996. The peak of the Imia crisis leads to the crash of the Agusta Bell PN21 helicopter and the death of three Greek officers. Twenty-eight years later, Kathimerini attempts to shed light on the unknown background of the crisis and the causes that brought the two countries to the brink of war. Through the exclusive testimonies to Kathimerini of two of the protagonists of the crisis, the then-Greek ambassador in Ankara Dimitrios Nezeritis and former Turkish deputy foreign minister Onur Oymen, unknown details about the crisis and elements of the "war of diplomacy" are revealed.

In a chronology of events divided into seven parts, Ambassador Oymen - a close associate of then prime minister Tansu Ciller and the "real boss at the Foreign Ministry," as Ambassador Nezeritis describes him - reveals unknown aspects of Turkish foreign policy, while the Greek diplomat...