Aegean

The improving weather has been accompanied by an increase in arrivals of undocumented refugees and migrants on the Aegean islands by sea from neighboring Turkey, with the already overcrowded reception center on Samos under rising pressure.

Turkish and Greek officials will come together next month to discuss what confidence building measures they can impose to avoid new confrontations in the Aegean Sea, Greece's top diplomat said, while also informing about an agreement for the relaunch of exploratory talks for the resolution of all problems stemming from the Aegean.

Greece calling Turkey's flights over the Aegean Sea a "threat" is incompatible with alliance and good neighborly relations, said Turkey on March 15, in the latest rejoinder in the countries' Aegean dispute.       

Turkey will continue to protect its rights and interests in the Aegean, the Black Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean, the country's Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said Tuesday, adding that Turkish Cypriots have legitimate rights to natural resources off the ethnically-split island.
"Everyone should act accordingly," Akar was quoted by the country's state-owned Anadolu agency as saying.

In what has been described as a show of force to Greece and Cyprus, Turkey on Wednesday launched its biggest ever naval exercise.

The "Blue Homeland 2019" exercise, with the participation of frigates, destroyers and fighter jets, takes place in the Black Sea, the Aegean and the Mediterranean through March 8.

A section of the port on the eastern Aegean island of Lesvos is being named after Kyriakos Papadopoulos, the late coast guard officer who distinguished himself during the peak of the refugee crisis in 2015 and 2016 and was credited with more than 5,000 rescues.

Main opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Thursday reiterate Greece's position that there are no grey zones in the Aegean, marking the anniversary of the 1996 Imia crisis, which brought Athens and Ankara to the brink of war.

An Iraqi irregular migrant who was rescued by the Turkish Coast Guard along with 45 others in the Aegean Sea on Jan. 15 said Greek naval officers "tried to kill" them.

A total of 47,929 undocumented migrants traveled to Greece in 2018 and 6,558 left the country during the same period, Migration Minister Dimitris Vitsas told a press conference on Thursday, noting that the influx over the Greek-Turkish land border almost tripled.

Seven people remained in hospital in Mytilene, Lesvos, as a precaution on Thursday, after coming in contact with an unknown substance found inside an envelope received by administrative staff at the University of the Aegean on Wednesday afternoon, state-run news agency ANA-MPA reported.