The shooting down of a ballistic missile headed for Turkey by NATO air defenses does not provide immediate reason to trigger the alliance’s Article 5 mutual defense clause, Secretary-General Mark Rutte told Reuters on Thursday.
Turkey on Thursday raised the issue of the demilitarization of the islands in the eastern Aegean, in a statement seen as a reaction to Athens’ announcement that it is deploying Patriot missiles to Karpathos amid the ongoing Middle East conflict.
Athens was quick to respond on Thursday to a statement from the Turkish Foreign Ministry, which was seen as a reaction to Greece’s decision to deploy anti-aircraft missiles to Karpathos in the southeastern Aegean, while also raising the issue of the islands’ demilitarization.
Cyprus says the Shahed drone that struck a British air base on the island nation’s southern coastline was launched from Beirut.
Greece’s Hellenic Public Properties (HPPC) agency has granted use of the historic Averofeion Girls’ School building in Alexandria, Egypt, to the Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa, which plans to convert it into a higher school of philosophy and humanities.
Defense Minister Nikos Dendias said measures taken by Athens are “absolutely sufficient” to shield Greece from potential strikes, while noting that Crete, the location of the Souda Bay base, lies “at the limits of the maximum range” of Iranian weapons.
It took a little more than 24 hours for the flames of war that Israel and the US ignited in the Middle East to reach Cyprus.
Parliament is expected on Thursday to begin debating the lease agreements between the Greek state and a consortium of Chevron and HelleniQ Energy for the exploration and potential exploitation of hydrocarbons in four new offshore areas near Crete and the Peloponnese.
This creates a new cycle of delays in a tender that has gone through various problems.
A total of 162 Greek citizens have been successfully evacuated from the Middle East in the first round of repatriations, the Foreign Ministry announced Thursday.