Allegation About Harassment Of Passenger Plane Over Aegean

GENERAL STAFF: ''THIS NEWS IS TOTALLY WRONG, IT IS PROVOCATION''
ANKARA - The General Staff denied on Tuesday the news about harassment of a passenger plane over Aegean by Turkish warplanes, stressing, ''this news is totally wrong and it is a provocation. Flying ten kilometers away from a civilian plane is neither violation nor harassment.''
Releasing a statement, the General Staff Secretariat General said that it had been observed that number of Greek media's news reports which quoted Greek authorities as saying that 'Turkish planes violated Greek airspace' over the Aegean, had increased significantly.
Noting that lastly, some news reports of Greek origin had defended that Turkish planes harassed a civilian airways plane over Aegean, the statement said, ''this news is totally wrong and it is a provocation. Flying ten kilometers away from a civilian plane is neither violation nor harassment.''
Stressing that there was a flight information region (FIR) which controlled flights over Aegean, the statement said, ''this region is not a border of sovereignty, but it only shows the area of responsibility of Istanbul and Athens air regions which only control flights of civilian planes. Under international rules, the state planes which are going to cross this FIR route do not make any statement. Only civilian planes are responsible of making such a statement.''
''Despite that international rules are in this way, the Greek authorities request Turkey to make early flight statement whenever Turkish warplanes fly in international airspace over Aegean, that is the region which does not belong to Greece. Undoubtedly, reply is not given to such unjust request which is not legal, and Turkish planes use their right not to make early statement about their flights over Aegean to the Greek side,'' it said.
''Although Turkey is definitely right about this issue, Greeks make blocking to our planes and bring this blocking to the point of harassment by having their planes taken off from the islands in Aegean, which they armed by violating international agreements and should actually be disarmed, whenever our planes fly in international airspace over Aegean,'' it said.
''Although all international rules, regulations and all correspondence in the NATO prove rightfulness of Turkey, the Greek side quotes officials in every level as making statements of accusations against Turkey, and this gives the impression that the issue of Aegean disputes would be brought onto the EU agenda by making use of this opportunity. So it is assessed that it is a national responsibility of our media and nation to take notice of hidden intentions of such approaches,'' the statement added.
(MS-AÖ) 10.06.2003