On November 26, Greek media reported that six Turkish fighter jets violated Greece’s national air space in the northeastern Aegean Sea, quoting Greek defence officials.
Mock dogfights between aircraft from the two neighbouring counties have been going on for years and only last year Turkey violated Greek airspace over 2244 times.
Late on Sunday 29 November, several tweets were sent from Alexis Tsipras’ account as president of the SYRIZA party, instead of the official account used by Greek prime ministers addressing Ankara and Turkish prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu. As it happened:
The tweets came after the Brussels summit, also attended by Davutoglu, during which the EU agreed to offer Turkey $3.2bn and political concessions in return for handling the refugees from war-torn countries on its territory.
Davutoglu replied to the third tweet, urging his Greek counterpart to “focus on our positive agenda”:
“Comments on pilots by @atsipras seem hardly in tune with the spirit of the day. Alexis: let us focus on our positive agenda.
— Ahmet Davutoglu (@Ahmet_Davutoglu) November 29, 2015″
With Tsipras saying:
4/4 We have the most modern aerial weapons systems–and yet, on the ground, we can’t catch traffickers who drown innocent people #EUTurkey
— Alexis Tsipras (@tsipras_eu) November 29, 2015
Source: Statista
Several twitter followers were astonished when Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras took to the platform to harshly criticize Turkey, some were even proud he said that. The tweets, however, were shortly afterwards removed, sparking hundreds of negative comments for the Greek PM.
Tonight’s twitter shenanigans by #Tsipras only point towards diplomatic amateurism & lack of foreign policy direction. There’s no plan.
— The Greek Analyst (@GreekAnalyst) November 29, 2015
The needling four tweets were after Davuloglu’s replies replaced with a more diplomatic version, as you can see below:
We are in the same neighborhood and we have to talk honestly so we can reach solutions #EUTurkey
— Alexis Tsipras (@tsipras_eu) November 29, 2015