US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking on Tuesday at a hearing of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, underlined that President Joe Biden will raise the issue of Turkey’s activities in the eastern Mediterranean during his upcoming meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Responding to a question by Senator Bob Menendez, the chairman of the Senate’s foreign relations panel, on what the US administration was doing to address a series of provocative and bellicose actions by Turkey under Erdogan, the Secretary of State said he shared the concerns over Ankara’s behavior, which he described as “deeply disturbing.”
He added: “…Our differences with Turkey… are no secret…In many aspects it is not acting as the NATO ally it should be.”
Blinken added that Washington was “pleased”, as he put it, to see Ankara pulling back from some of its posturing in the region, “…including removing its ships from waters that Cyprus considers to be part of its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and stopping the drilling.”
In his comments, Menendez slammed Turkey for drifting away from the West, as he said, on all the “…core principles that we believe in.”
Menendez said he considers that Turkey is constantly violating international law, when it seeks to threaten Cyprus in its EEZ, when it declares an economic zone reaching Libya, something recognized by no one, as well as interfering with Greece’s EEZ.
