Greek Forces Invade Turkey, Sort Of

türkçe links to original Turkish article

(Hürriyet Newspaper, 4 March 2018)


Greeks bearing no gifts, just pursuing 'yellow snow'.

In Edirne, a Greek Army Lieutenant, Angelos Mitretodis (25),
and an NCO, Dimitris Kouklazis (29), were arrested on charges
of 'military espionage' and 'entering a forbidden military zone',
while they were on patrol near their command post at Kastanies
on the Greek-Turkish border.  Both rejected the charges, asserting
they had mistakenly strayed onto the Turkish side of the frontier.

Lieutenant Mitretodis declared that "would a spy choose snowy
weather?  When we walk we leave a trail in the snow.  We didn't
notice that we had crossed onto the Turkish side.  We were
pursuing illegal migrants and photographed their footprints with
the phone the army gave us.  Then we saw urine stains in the snow
and hurried to catch them but when we saw the Turkish soldiers
we realized we had strayed to the Turkish side."

The Turkish court ordered the two Greek soldiers jailed because
of the possibility they might flee and the Anatolian News Agency
reported that the two soldiers gave contradictory statements so
the investigation has been broadened.  The Greek press speculated
that Turkey may want to use the two jailed Greek soldiers as
bargaining chips vis-a-vis 8 Turkish soldiers who fled to Greece
after the aborted July 2016 coup attempt in Turkey.


 The incident occurred just northwest of Edirne.