The Turkish lira has crashed to a record low - at time of publication it was 7.24 liras to the U.S. Dollar. Turkey's three largest banks, Garanti, Akbank and İşbank are on the verge of bankruptcy, according to New Economy.
Yet, Turkey still has time to keep dreaming of occupying Greek islands and maritime space in the Eastern Mediterranean, despite its drowning currency and economy.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu yesterday said that Turkey's violation of Greek airspace is "routine practice" and there "are islands and islets that are not clearly demarcated," meaning Turkey is still challenging Greek sovereignty of the Eastern Aegean islands.
Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias told Real Radio that "we will not follow Turkey downhill."
"Unfortunately, we are in a climate in which Turkey is not responding to the friendly hand that our country is constantly leaning on," Dendias said. "We have an obligation to defend our national interests, our national sovereignty and not to allow Turkey to lead our relations to such an escalation that we can militarize any dispute."
"We are not going to militarise the crisis with Turkey. It is the trap that Turkey is setting for Greece: to move from the stage of law to the stage of actions of this kind. The militarisation of differences with Turkey will not lead to a solution, it will lead to a deterioration," the Foreign Minister said, but stressed that" Greece retains all the rights to defend its national space."
Although the Turkish economy is being destroyed caused by corruption and reckless spending and borrowing, Turkey still manages to find liras to violate Greek airspace on a daily basis, continue its occupation of northern Cyprus, fund terrorist organisations in Syria and send weapons to the Muslim Brotherhood in Libya.
Dendias also stated that Greece is in negotiations on the delimitation of the Economic Exclusion Zone with Italy and Egypt, and at some point soon the relevant discussions with Cyprus and Albania will begin.
According to international law, this is how the Economic Exclusion Zone of the Eastern Mediterranean will look.
As Turkey has an extremely limited Economic Exclusion Zone in the Eastern Aegean, it is one of only 15 countries in the entire world to not sign and ratify the United Nations Charter Law of Sea.
