Turkish newspaper Aydınlık accuses Greece of colonising the Aegean islands with... goats

With the front page headline: "Athens is playing the lamb, but its plan is revealed," the nationalist pro-government newspaper Aydınlık accuses Greece of... colonising uninhabited islands in the Aegean Sea with... goats it buys with a European grant.

"The Greeks were buying goat money from the EU and transporting their animals to Aegean islands. Athens promotes the occupation of these islets under the pretext of "dealing with desertification" and "environmental protection", the publication notes.

As Aydınlık reports, the Greek government in collaboration with the University of Toronto "have started the implementation of a plan to create research bases for monitoring natural life on islands and islets," which according to Turkish claims, but rejected globally, Greece does not have sovereignty over them.

"The government of Athens, which in the past had attempted to raise flags called 'bird observatories' on islands that do not belong to it, such as Zourafa, Agathonissi and Farmakonissi, and in particular on the Imia islets, in the framework of the NATURA 2000 environmental protection program, which extends throughout the European Union, is now taking measures to expand its possession," writes defiantly the newspaper, citing details of the new program.

“Greece, which is trying to create a de facto situation on the islands and islets with the settlement and settlement policy, also wants these geographical formations to have full influence on the maritime areas. In other words, the Greek government seeks for the islets to have broad areas of maritime jurisdiction in addition to the islands," the publication notes.

READ MORE: Ömer Çelik: "Greece is turning the Mediterranean into a graveyard"