
Turkey has warned Greece that a missile could hit the Greek capital if they do not 'keep calm', further escalating its anti-Greece rhetoric.
"We have now started to produce our own missiles," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said during a speech in northern Turkey. "Of course, this production scares the Greeks. When you say 'Tayfun', the Greek gets scared and says: 'It will hit Athens'. Well, of course it can happen."
Tayfun is a short-range ballistic missile developed by Turkey. The missile, which was tested in October over the Black Sea, hit a target at a distance of about 560 kilometers.
"If you don't stay calm, if you try to buy something to arm yourself from here and there, from America, we will not just sit and watch. Of course, Turkey must do something," Erdogan threatened.
Turkey has stepped up its rhetoric against Greece in recent months amid what Ankara sees as a military buildup in the Greek Aegean islands off Turkey's coastline. In a repeated, thinly veiled threat, Erdogan said:
"We can go down suddenly one night, when the time comes." Despite being NATO allies, the neighboring countries have been at odds for decades over a range of bilateral issues, including maritime, continental borders and the long-running Cyprus dispute.