Another top member of an increasingly agitated Erdogan government on Thursday hurled more threats against the eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus – one-third of which the Turkish military continues to occupy – with Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu taking a lead from Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself to claim that “the Greek Cypriots cannot take any steps against us”.
In ramping up Ankara’s usual saber-rattling, Cavusoglu veered even further along the jingoist “playbook” to add: “…even if they dare, they’ll receive an answer, as happened in the past”.
He was directly alluding to a July 1974 invasion by the Turkish military, in statements to the state-run broadcast in Turkey.
Cyprus, an EU and Eurozone member-state, has forcefully decried Ankara’s attempts to explore for hydrocarbons in the Cypriot EEZ, drawing regional and international attention to activities by Turkey – a non-signatory of the UN Law of the Sea.
