Two Greek servicemen that were held in a Turkish jail for more than five months returned to the country on Wednesday, arriving in the northern port city of Thessaloniki aboard a government executive jet that picked them up from the western border city of Edirne.
The two men, Sec. Lt. Angelos Mitretodis and Sgt. Dimitris Kouklatzis, were met by a military honor guard at Thessaloniki’s Macedonia Airport, and were greeted by ministers and top armed forces officials. The two men’s relatives were also on hand.
The pretrial detention of the pair without official charges filed and without a fixed court date scheduled had further strained sensitive Greek-Turkish relations.
Beyond the bevy of official statements by Greece’s political leadership, in the government and opposition, the US ambassador to Greece, Geoffrey Pyatt, also commented on the positive development, taking to his Twitter account to write “Congratulations to all my colleagues at @GreeceMFA”.
Speculation was rife in the country over the past 24 hours – with Wednesday marking a major religious holiday and the climax of the annual summer season – over the role that Washington possibly played in pushing for the release of the two Greek servicemen.
In his high-profile statements, the country’s defense minister, Panos Kammenos, cited mediation by Qatar as facilitating the release. A first instance court in the European Turkey city of Edirne ordered the release of the men this week, saying in a ruling, that time served in pre-trial detention already covers the foreseen maximum jail sentence for a possible conviction on a charge of illegally entering a restricted military zone. A judge also noted that no indications of espionage were made available by a prosecutor’s office assigned the case.
The incident had generated increased attention beyond Greece’s borders, given that one NATO member-state (Turkey) had arrested and jailed members of another NATO ally (Greece) for inadvertently crossing a common land border by a few meters, and at a spot where numerous third country nationals have been trafficked into Greece over the decades by smugglers operating from Turkish territory.
