Immediately after the Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias and his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu clashed Thursday during an unusually frank and heated press conference in Ankara.
Turkey is challenging for the first time; the Greek-Egyptian EEZ and sent a Turkish frigate into the area south of Crete to threaten a French research ship studying the Greek continental shelf.
The French research ship «L’ATALANTE» requested permission from Greece to proceed with investigations well within the EEZ defined by the Greece-Egypt agreement west of the 28th meridian.
For the first time, Turkey did not issue a Anti Navtex but proceeded to send a frigate in order to drive the French research ship out.
The French research is accompanied by a frigate of the Greek Navy
Turkey, using the illegal memorandum with Libya (GNA) , with an unprecedented move that points to a state of war, sent a frigate to threaten the French ship to leave the region, claiming that based on the illegal memorandum Turkey has signed with the GNA government of Libya is, the area is under Turkish control.