Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu with his German counterpart Haiko Maas.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu directly threatened Greece during a joint press conference with his German counterpart Haiko Maas, despite the fact that the latter had made appeals to the Turkish side not to return to its intensive practices
"Greece should not be influenced by other countries and do exercises wherever it wants or any other steps," he said.
"Otherwise we will not only have an accident, but we will do what we have to do," he added.
Çavuşoğlu said, focusing again on the Kastellorizo continental shelf, arguing that "Greece is claiming sea space for an island 2 km from Turkey," unwilling to accept Greece has this right under the United Nations Charter Law of the Sea.
Turkey is one of only 15 countries in the entire world to not sign or ratify the United Nations Charter Law of the Sea.
Of the 15 countries that have not signed or ratified the Charter, many of them are landlocked countries with no access to sea, unlike Turkey that has approximately 8,000 kilometres of coastline.
"Greece speaks of international law, but does not implement the rulings of the International Court of Human Rights," claiming that members of Greece's Muslim minority in Thrace "should be called Turks."
The Turkish Foreign Minister obviously forgot his own Foreign Ministry websites which affirms in the Treaty of Lausanne Part VI Article 2 that:
“Moslems established in the region to the east of the frontier line laid down in 1918 by the Treaty of Bucharest shall be considered as Moslem inhabitants of Western Thrace.”
Regarding the upcoming exploratory contacts, Çavuşoğlu stated that "what was discussed in the previous 60 rounds, will be discussed in the 61st."
Prior to his visit to Turkey, Maas stressed that "this game of fire must not be repeated."