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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: Possibly no more meetings with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis
Photo: Uncredited / dpa
NATO member states are currently trying to persuade Turkey to agree to the inclusion of Finland and Sweden in the defense alliance.
The efforts are now being dampened by renewed tensions between Ankara and Athens.
Statements by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis about US arms deliveries to Turkey apparently caused massive irritation among Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
"We had agreed with him not to involve a third party in our dispute," Erdoğan said at a press conference on Monday in reference to Mitsotakis' statements on the delivery of US fighter jets.
"Nevertheless, he visited the USA last week and spoke in Congress and warned against supplying us with F-16s (
fighter jets, editor's note
)." Erdoğan added, referring to the Greek Prime Minister: "For me, Mitsotakis doesn't exist more.
I will never agree to meet him."
Turkey has long been pushing for the delivery of US fighter jets
Turkey has been pushing for the purchase of US fighter jets for years, but the government in Washington has so far refused to do so.
Western diplomats suspect that Turkey is making its approval of Sweden and Finland joining the NATO military alliance dependent on the delivery of the aircraft.
When accepting new members, all NATO countries must agree.
In 2019, the US stopped the planned delivery of F-35 jets to Turkey after the Turkish military procured the Russian S-400 missile defense system.
Turkey later changed their purchase request to the F-16.
fek/dpa/Reuters
