Greece is covertly occupying the islands, says Erdogan

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan raised the stakes again on Tuesday, accusing Greece of carrying out a “covert occupation” of the islands of the eastern Aegean.

“The weapons piled up in Western Thrace and on the islands make no sense to us because our strength far exceeds theirs, but we remind you that this means a covert occupation,” Erdogan told a meeting of his AKP party’s provincial leaders in Ankara.

The Turkish president’s comments came a day after Ankara claimed that US armored wheel vehicles being transported to the Eastern Aegean violate their allegedly “demilitarized” status.

At the same meeting on Tuesday, Erdogan also accused Greece of being among European countries harboring terrorists.

“The murderers who shed the blood of our citizens are embraced in almost every country in Europe, particularly in the Lavrio camp in Greece. They can walk around freely by waving their arms,” the Anadolu Agency quoted him as saying, a day after an officer was killed in an attack on a police precinct that is being blamed on the PKK Kurdish guerrilla group.