Greece’s outspoken health minister took a page right out of the up-until-recently “Erdogan playbook” this week by parodying the jingoist quip “we may come suddenly one night”, a more-or-less ill-timed quip that raised eyebrows in the neighboring country and clashes with high-profile efforts to repair bilateral ties.
Speaking during a television appearance, minister and top ruling New Democracy (ND) cadre Adonis Georgiadis veered away from his issues in his current Cabinet portfolio and referred to a series of prominent weapons procurement projects commenced by the current government.
Specifically, he said that “… by purchasing the F-35s we become stronger; by purchasing frigates we become stronger; by purchasing the F16 Vipers and entering into defense alliances with America and France, we are getting stronger. We don’t become stronger because of a tweet, but when the opponent realizes that we are no longer an easy target. I laugh when I hear these ‘one night, suddenly’ (remarks),” Georgiadis, a veteran minister, said, before adding:
“With the F-35 we can suddenly go to Turkey one night. Did you see what happened in Yemen? If you have the F-35s, which aren’t picked up by the radar, one night, suddenly, you can be in Ankara and wreak havoc,” as he said, using a phrase from the Old Testament Book of Numbers to refer to destruction. He also cited what he claimed was the poor quality of the current Turkish air force over the five years that the Mitsotakis government has been in power.
In quick order, he pulled back from the brink by adding: “I’m not saying that we will do something like this, because we don’t want to do something like this, but when Erdogan says it, I laugh. What will you bring to Greece one night?”
In one first reaction, the mass Turkish daily Miliyet, in a front-page reference, charged that the “the Greek health minister Adonis Georgiadis, in a television program … claimed that Turkey is a zero in (military) aviation and said the following: ‘With the F-35s, we can suddenly go one night to Turkey.”
The Turkiye newspaper referred to “arrogant statements by the Greek minister”, claiming it was a reaction to statements by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan from occupied Cyprus over the weekend, who appeared at a “militaristic fiesta” in the occupied areas to mark the dour 50th anniversary of the Turkish invasion of the east Mediterranean island.
