A large geopolitical burden is brewing in the Eastern Mediterranean region and the creator of this burden is Turkey, without knowing how this will be released, said the retired Lieutenant General Andreas Pentaras, speaking on Cypriot TV station SIGMA.
Pentaras stated that the positions of Greece and Turkey lead mathematically to a hot incident and possibly if it escalates into a Greek-Turkish war.
That is why, he stressed, an effort has been launched by the European Union for some kind of diplomatic easing of the situation.
Turkey's strategy has been in place since the 1950s and has evolved over time depending on geopolitical developments, he said.
When asked to comment on how the situation could escalate, Pentaras said that in this case the aggressor was Turkey, so if the international community wanted to resolve the issue through diplomatic means, efforts should be directed exclusively at Turkey and not at Cyprus or Greece.
Regarding the statement of the President of the Republic Cyprus that the "solution through militarisation, will be the end of Cypriot Hellenism," Pentaras noted that he obviously meant that under the current circumstances of Cyprus alone cannot defeat the armed forces of Turkey alone.
In this volatile situation we are facing with the possibility of a hot incident, a Greece-Turkey conflict will spread to Cyprus because it is the weak link for Turkey and it will try to achieve a decisive result because in Greece it will lose, he said.
If there is a hot incident and a conflict, Greece will be the winner and Turkey will try to achieve a substantial result in Cyprus in order to change it at the negotiating table that will follow, he added.
This comes as Turkey continually makes threats to invade Greece's Eastern Aegean islands, the rest of Cyprus and steal oil and gas from both countries.