Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's adviser and a Professor of Yeditepe University International Relations Department, Mesut Hakkı Caşın, has made threats against Greece if it defends its own territorial waters from Turkish provocations.
In a discussion with Ardan Zentürk, a television moderator, on his YouTube channel that has nearly 50,000 subscribers, Caşın said "an attack on a state-owned ship is an attack on the state itself," in reference to Greece's constant warnings that any illegal Turkish drilling near Crete could be met with force.
"The exploration vessel out there has a Turkish flag and an attack on it would be considered as Casus Belli," the Latin expression to mean an act or event that provokes or is used to justify war, he said.
"Secondly, how could you [Greeks] attack a peaceful drilling ship in international waters and Exclusive Economic Zone area?" he questioned.
He of course does not mention that Turkey is planning to drill in Greek maritime space, in which Turkey attempts to justify through the illegal memorandum it made with the Muslim Brotherhood Government of National Accords based in the Libyan capital of Tripoli whose mandate to govern the country ended in 2017.
No country or institutional in the world has recognised this memorandum but Turkey, and rather it has received international condemnation.
Ardan Zentürk, then said "But their master, Israel, attacked Mavi Marmara and killed 10 people," in reference to when Turkish ships attempted to break Israel's blockade on Hamas-ruled Gaza.
Although Turkey attempts to portray itself as the champion of the Palestinian cause, it has a thriving economic relation with Israel, much larger than that of Greece and Israel. The economic relations are so close that Turkey manufactures the boots worn by the Israeli military, making it curious that Zentürk would say Israel is Greece's "master."
"These people do not distinguish civilian from military," Zentürk added without a sense of irony with tens of thousands of Kurdish civilians having been slaughtered in Turkey under the guise of fighting the Kurdistan Workers Party.
"Well, those days are gone. If Israel does it again, there will be a terrible cost. It already paid a price for it," Caşın added.