Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan renamed the Mediterranean Sea to the "Blue Sea" ("Mavi Akdeniz"), linking it to the provocative "Blue Homeland" narrative he seeks to impose on Greek and Cypriot sovereign rights.
Speaking to pro-government reporters on Wednesday on the national TRT network, he announced that the new drilling rig bought by Turkey from South Korea would conduct research in the Eastern Mediterranean region, which he called the "Blue Sea."
"Now we have our sixth ship, a drilling ship. With these ships, either in the Black Sea and especially the 'Blue Sea'," Erdoğan said, with a journalist confirming if he meant "Mediterranean."
The Turkish president continued: "Let 's call the Mediterranean the 'Blue Sea'."
"So there we will do our work more intensely and with more confidence.
"Of course this bothers some people a lot," he said in reference to Greece and Cyprus, but also political opponents.
It remains unknown if Erdoğan seeks to impose on Turks the renaming of the "Mediterranean Sea" to the "Blue Sea" just as he attempts to make the Aegean Sea into the "Sea of Islands" due to the Greek origin of Aegean.
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