Turkey remains a threat to Greece, even if relations between the two neighbours have warmed, the new Greek Defence Minister, Mr Yannos Papantoniou, said in a newspaper interview yesterday.
"The Turkish threat persists, unfortunately, just as much as in the past," Mr Papantoniou said in the interview with To Vima.
Ties between the Aegean neighbours warmed in 1999 when the two helped each other after both countries were rocked by major earthquakes within days of each other.
Mr Papantoniou said Turkey still maintained some unacceptable demands: "We do not negotiate our sovereign rights with the Turks." However, Greece would press on with efforts at rapprochement, which would include backing Turkey's bid to join the EU: "Greece has every interest in protecting the friendship and co-operation and also in promoting Turkey's accession into the European Union," he said.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister of Turkey, Mr Bulent Ecevit, said yesterday Cyprus was crucial to Turkey's national security and claimed abandoning the Turkish Cypriot north of the divided island was tantamount to giving up Turkish territory. Mr Ecevit's comments - the latest in a series of hardline statements from Ankara - come ahead of a key meeting next week between President Glafcos Clerides of Cyprus and the Turkish Cypriot leader, Mr Rauf Denktash.
Efforts to find a settlement on the island have taken on greater urgency as Cyprus moves closer to EU membership in 2004. Earlier this month, Mr Ecevit said Turkey could annex the self-styled Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) if the EU admits Cyprus before a settlement is reached.
"There's no difference between sacrificing the TRNC and sacrificing a piece of Turkey's soil," Mr Ecevit said in a television interview Sunday. "The TRNC is not just vital to the security of Cyprus' Turks but for Turkey's security as well."
Mr Ecevit also claimed EU policy on Cyprus could plunge the island into ethnic violence. "If a solution the Greek Cypriots or the EU's demands is brought onto the agenda, to me it's inescapable Turks there would face a new genocide," he claimed.
Mr Ecevit said he was not "overly hopeful" about the talks between Mr Denktash and Clerides. "It's beneficial to be optimistic," he said. "I hope to see the sides come closer, but I'm not overly hopeful."
Mr Denktash, who arrived in Ankara yesterday, is due to meet Mr Clerides for the first time in four years in the presence of a senior UN envoy on December 4th. "I want to meet Clerides to tell him he's on the wrong path," Mr Denktash said.