Turkish corvette "wanders" around the Cyclades!

By Makis Polatos

Yet another Turkish battleship approached the islands of Tinos, Paros and Mykonos, violating Greek territorial waters and the rules of safe passage without any obvious reason or cause!

The Turkish corvette «Bodrum» which, according to sources, left the port of Smirni at noon of Tuesday February 8, sailed south-southwest in the Aegean. It initially moved north of Chios and then west of Psara on international waters.

At around 7.30-8.00pm, the corvette entered Greek waters and sailed between Tinos and Mykonos!

Greek battleships that were discreetly observing Bodrum, then started transmitting radio messages asking the commander of the Turkish ship to immediately depart from the Greek territorial waters given that he was violating the rules of safe passage.

It is an outrage that the ship completely ignored the calls of the Greek naval officers and continued sailing in Greek waters for more than 3 hours!

At around 11am, Bodrum was sailing west of Paros bearing south-southwest, always on Greek waters.

The aimless wandering of the Turkish battleship in the Cyclades set the ministry of Defense on alert.

In August 2009, the same corvette (Bodrum F-501 type A69) had hit the rocks at a distance of only 500 meters from the shores of Kastelorizo. In that event, the Turkish corvette had suffered serious damage. And at the spot in the open sea off Kastelorizo where the ship had scraped the seabed, the Greek Navy detected the sonar of the Turkish corvette...