Greece rebuffs Turkish reports on Imia wreath ceremony

The Hellenic Navy General Staff has dismissed Turkish media reports that Turkey’s coast guard on Sunday prevented Defense Minister Panos Kammenos from throwing a wreath into the sea off the Imia islets in the eastern Aegean where a Greek military helicopter crashed in 1996, killing three servicemen, during a crisis that brought Greece and Turkey to the brink of war.

In a written statement on Monday, the Hellenic Navy said the claim by the Turkish Interior Ministry, quoted by the state-run Anadolu agency, had nothing to do with reality and that the Nikiforos gunboat carrying Kammenos arrived at the spot despite the attempt by Turkish Coast Guard patrol boats to prevent it from doing so.

Kammenos tweeted that the report is a “lie” and that the Hellenic Navy has “humiliated the Turks over their claims about Imia.”

Turkey disputes Greece’s sovereignty over these and other islands in the eastern Aegean.