Greek and Turkish jets engaged in a brief dogfight over the Aegean Sea on Tuesday after Turkish aircraft violated Greek national air space several times.
A formation of six Turkish jets, flanked by two CN-235 aircraft that were not in formation, violated Greek air space nine times, according to Greek defense officials.
In all cases the Turkish jets were chased off by Greek aircraft. Two of the eight Turkish aircraft were armed.
The violations were the first since early December following a minor diplomatic spat between the two Aegean neighbors after a message on Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s Twitter account accused Turkish jets of repeated transgressions in the Aegean.
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On Monday, Sputnik the Russian news agency published a report attributed to the Greek website pronews.gr which revealed that Greece has rejected announcements from Ankara, which seeking to restrict flights over Greek islands in the Aegean Sea f
or 12 months so that Turkey can carry out military training.
“The Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority has issued a NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) to [nullify] and void three Turkish NOTAM, which provocatively and brazenly restrict flights in large areas of the Aegean for even 12 months,” wrote pronews.
A NOTAM is a notice filed with an aviation authority that alerts aircraft pilots to potential hazards in an area which could affect the safety of a flight.
Pronews reported that on December 23, Ankara issued NOTAM Α5885/15, Α5884/15 and Α5881/15, which announced restrictions on aviation in the northern, central and southern areas of the Aegean Sea.
The area Turkey wanted to use includes the Athon peninsula in the northern Aegean and the Greek islands of Lemnos, Patmos, Tinos, Mykonos and Skyros among others.
Skyros is among the sites where Greece has a Patriot anti-aircraft missile system installed, while the northern Aegean contains valuable Greek oil and gas reserves, the newspaper noted.In response, the Greek aviation authority issued NOTAM A2642/15, A2641/15 and A2640/15, which asserted that only Greece has the right to issue an announcement that restricts Greek airspace.
“The coordinates given by Ankara cover a region over which Greece has national sovereignty,” said Athens.
As well as Greece’s internal air traffic, Turkey’s attempt to restrict airspace has also interfered with the R19 and L995 international aviation corridors, the aviation authority stated.
The move is essentially “splitting” the Aegean Sea in half, while it also intrudes into Greek airspace, interferes with traffic to two regional airports and affects two international traffic routes. According to international regulations, the only competent authority for issuing such notices is the Greek Civil Aviation Authority.
This is not the first time Turkey has issued NOTAM for military exercises in Greek airspace.
In February 2015 Turkey issued a NOTAM requesting to reserve extensive Greek airspace from March 2 to December 31, 2015, for military exercises, include firing live rounds over islands of Lemnos to Skyros within the Flight Information Region (FIR) of Athens. The Turkish NOTAM was eventually withdrawn after the Greek government lodged a formal complaint to NATO and the EU.
Both Turkey and Greece presently exercise a 6 nautical miles breadth of territorial waters in the Aegean which enables almost half of this Sea and the airspace above it to be freely used as high seas and international airspace by both Turkey and Greece as well as third countries.
eKathimerini, Sputnik, pronews.gr.
