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A 'secret war' between Turkey and Greece just turned deadly after a long history of dogfights

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A 'secret war' between Turkey and Greece just turned deadly after a long history of dogfights over the Aegean Sea

5ad10e29146e712a008b48a4-750-375.jpg

A Hellenic Air Force Mirage 2000EG.
Wikimedia Commons
  • A Greek fighter jet crashed and the pilot was killed after intercepting two Turkish F-16 fighters that had intruded into Greek airspace.
  • While fatalities are unusual, Turkish jets have been violating Greek airspace for decades, and the incursions have increased over the years.
  • Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has become more aggressive in his rhetoric towards the West, saying that he wants to renegotiate the treaty that defined Turkey's borders after its war of independence.


For decades, a secret air war has been waged over the skies of southeastern Europe between two NATO allies: Greece and Turkey.

Greek officials announced on Thursday that a Hellenic Air Force Mirage 2000-5 fighter jet crashed in the Aegean Sea, near the island of Skyros. The pilot, identified by the HAF as 33-year-old Capt. Giorgos Baltadoros, was returning from an aerial policing mission where he intercepted two Turkish Air Force F-16s.

"The mission had finished and it had been on its way back with another Greek plane," a Greek official told the New York Times. Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos said that Baltadoros was a "hero who fell defending national sovereignty and territorial integrity."

It is not known exactly what caused the Greek fighter jet to crash, but AFP reported that "the pilot may have blacked out during a combat exercise on the return home." Turkish state-run news agency Anadolu quoted Turkish officials saying that there were no Turkish forces in the area.

While deaths from aerial interceptions over the Aegean are uncommon, violations of Greek airspace by Turkish aircraft happen with some frequency. Earlier this month, Greek troops fired tracer rounds at a Turkish helicopter that flew over the island of Ro with its navigation lights switched off.

The Greek military recorded 1,671 violations of its airspace by Turkish jets in 2016. To put that in perspective, NATO jets were scrambled 780 times to intercept Russian aircraft, the highest level since the Cold War.

A year later, the number of Turkish violations increased to 3,317, and 920 violations have already been recorded for 2018. The jets sometimes get into "dogfights" with one another — flying wildly in the sky while trying to get a missile lock before breaking off.

"Over the space of the past seventeen years, Turkish fighter jets - many of them equipped with combat arms - have been violating Greek airspace, resulting in interception attempts by Greek forces and, in many cases, dangerous air engagements and dogfights, even over inhabited islands of the Eastern Aegean," Panos Tasiopoulos, senior project manager at the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, writes.

The dogfights can get quite intense, as this video from 2006 shows:

Despite being NATO allies, Greece and Turkey have had a rough history. Modern day Turkey came into existence after a war with Greece and other allied nations in the aftermath of WWI. Tensions were further inflamed during the Cyprus Crisis, and almost erupted into full-scale war after Turkey invaded the island in 1974.

At the heart of the tensions are territorial disputes. Greece and Turkey share a land border in the north, but the border disputes are centered on the hundreds of islands in the Aegean Sea. There is debate between the two countries over the extent those islands' airspace and territorial waters cover.

The disputes have gotten so intense, that war has almost broken out between the countries on three separate occasions — in 1976, 1987, and 1996.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said that he wants to revise the Treaty of Lausanne, the recognized the sovereignty of the Republic of Turkey and defined the borders after the Turkish War of Independence. Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos responded that the treaty was in need "neither of revision nor of updating."

Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos said in February that Turkey was conducting "cowboy antics," and warned of escalations.

"We want peace, we are not looking for a fight or for trouble in the Aegean," he said. "But there won't be an aircraft which will not be intercepted."

SEE ALSO: A Greek fighter pilot died in a crash after a mission to intercept Turkish jets
DON'T MISS: These are the 25 most powerful militaries in the world — and there's a clear winner

http://www.businessinsider.com/greece-turkey-secret-war-dogfights-aegean-sea-2018-4
 
A 'secret war' between Turkey and Greece just turned deadly after a long history of dogfights over the Aegean Sea

5ad10e29146e712a008b48a4-750-375.jpg

A Hellenic Air Force Mirage 2000EG.
Wikimedia Commons
  • A Greek fighter jet crashed and the pilot was killed after intercepting two Turkish F-16 fighters that had intruded into Greek airspace.
  • While fatalities are unusual, Turkish jets have been violating Greek airspace for decades, and the incursions have increased over the years.
  • Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has become more aggressive in his rhetoric towards the West, saying that he wants to renegotiate the treaty that defined Turkey's borders after its war of independence.


For decades, a secret air war has been waged over the skies of southeastern Europe between two NATO allies: Greece and Turkey.

Greek officials announced on Thursday that a Hellenic Air Force Mirage 2000-5 fighter jet crashed in the Aegean Sea, near the island of Skyros. The pilot, identified by the HAF as 33-year-old Capt. Giorgos Baltadoros, was returning from an aerial policing mission where he intercepted two Turkish Air Force F-16s.

"The mission had finished and it had been on its way back with another Greek plane," a Greek official told the New York Times. Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos said that Baltadoros was a "hero who fell defending national sovereignty and territorial integrity."

It is not known exactly what caused the Greek fighter jet to crash, but AFP reported that "the pilot may have blacked out during a combat exercise on the return home." Turkish state-run news agency Anadolu quoted Turkish officials saying that there were no Turkish forces in the area.

While deaths from aerial interceptions over the Aegean are uncommon, violations of Greek airspace by Turkish aircraft happen with some frequency. Earlier this month, Greek troops fired tracer rounds at a Turkish helicopter that flew over the island of Ro with its navigation lights switched off.

The Greek military recorded 1,671 violations of its airspace by Turkish jets in 2016. To put that in perspective, NATO jets were scrambled 780 times to intercept Russian aircraft, the highest level since the Cold War.

A year later, the number of Turkish violations increased to 3,317, and 920 violations have already been recorded for 2018. The jets sometimes get into "dogfights" with one another — flying wildly in the sky while trying to get a missile lock before breaking off.

"Over the space of the past seventeen years, Turkish fighter jets - many of them equipped with combat arms - have been violating Greek airspace, resulting in interception attempts by Greek forces and, in many cases, dangerous air engagements and dogfights, even over inhabited islands of the Eastern Aegean," Panos Tasiopoulos, senior project manager at the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, writes.

The dogfights can get quite intense, as this video from 2006 shows:

Despite being NATO allies, Greece and Turkey have had a rough history. Modern day Turkey came into existence after a war with Greece and other allied nations in the aftermath of WWI. Tensions were further inflamed during the Cyprus Crisis, and almost erupted into full-scale war after Turkey invaded the island in 1974.

At the heart of the tensions are territorial disputes. Greece and Turkey share a land border in the north, but the border disputes are centered on the hundreds of islands in the Aegean Sea. There is debate between the two countries over the extent those islands' airspace and territorial waters cover.

The disputes have gotten so intense, that war has almost broken out between the countries on three separate occasions — in 1976, 1987, and 1996.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said that he wants to revise the Treaty of Lausanne, the recognized the sovereignty of the Republic of Turkey and defined the borders after the Turkish War of Independence. Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos responded that the treaty was in need "neither of revision nor of updating."

Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos said in February that Turkey was conducting "cowboy antics," and warned of escalations.

"We want peace, we are not looking for a fight or for trouble in the Aegean," he said. "But there won't be an aircraft which will not be intercepted."

SEE ALSO: A Greek fighter pilot died in a crash after a mission to intercept Turkish jets
DON'T MISS: These are the 25 most powerful militaries in the world — and there's a clear winner

http://www.businessinsider.com/greece-turkey-secret-war-dogfights-aegean-sea-2018-4
This is a completely biassed article, looking at the situation from Greek side.
 
This is a completely biassed article, looking at the situation from Greek side.
I was not aware if there is any border dispute between Turkey and Greece.
 
"The mission had finished and it had been on its way back with another Greek plane," a Greek official told the New York Times. Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos said that Baltadoros was a "hero who fell defending national sovereignty and territorial integrity."

This article is nothing more than propaganda. Greece's airspace claims are not recognised internationally and are just their own egos stretching out beyond reality.

Also, what he actually said was "He fell for faith and country, fighting to defend National sovereignty and our territorial integrity". Source. Next time someone in the West pretends to be concerned about Turkey becoming non-secular, ask them where their concern for Greece is. Or Norway, or England, or the many other Western countries which are officially non-secular.
 
Well, militarizing islands close to Turkey is Casus Belli imo.

By making stronger and stronger your "Aegean" army with a clear attacking formation, dogma and equipment and after the Cyprus invasion, the islands have to be well defended and fortified.

The forces there, can't invade the turkish coastal cities and it would be total foolishness to do so, because they can't be held by the greek army, on the contrary Turkey theoretically has some possibilities to attack, capture and hold one, two or some greek islands close to the turkish mainland, it's plain simple geography.
 
Middle of the aegean sea is the natural border between Greece and Turkey. Anything east of the Mykonos/Naxos line should have belonged to Turkey, west to the Greece. As usual it was the western powers that caused this constant regional quarrel. Them and their damned artificial borders.
 
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