“German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on Monday opposed Greece’s request to impose an arms embargo on Turkey,” the pro-government Turkish daily Sabah reported.
Speaking to Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa), Maas said:
“I do not consider the demand for an arms embargo against Turkey to be strategically correct. It is not easy to do this against a NATO partner. We have seen that Turkey, a NATO ally, easily bought missiles from Russia because it could not buy from the US. “.
The German minister stated that he hopes the Greek-Turkish disputes will be resolved through dialogue.
“The German Chancellor earlier this month also rejected Greece’s calls for an EU arms embargo on Turkey, underlining Berlin’s strategic commitments under the NATO alliance,” Sabah also said.
Following the meeting of EU leaders in Brussels, Merkel told reporters she was pleased with the outcome of the meeting and said decisions on Turkey-EU relations were also “balanced”.
Asked about Greece’s request for Germany to suspend arms sales and the delivery of Type 214 submarines to Turkey, Merkel said they should take into account “strategic dependencies” within the NATO alliance.
“Issues related to arms exports and deliveries should be discussed in the context of the NATO alliance,” Merkel said, adding that the majority of EU members are also members of the defense bloc.
