It only took 24 hours after Mitsotakis – Erdogan meetingon the sidelines of his Synod NATO, and the Turkish side started to provoke again. In a statement, the Turkish Coast Guard describes Zurafa as Turkish, maintains that it belongs to Canakkale and emphasizes that its coastguard is defending it.

The reason was the incident with the Coast Guard vessel, which collided with the Turkish fishing vessel northeast of Zurafa isletThursday morning.

As it states Coast Guard, in the morning hours today, a floating patrol car of the L.S.-EL.AKT. detected a Turkish fishing vessel (A/C) fishing within Greek territorial waters, in the sea area northeast of Zourafa islet.

During the attempt to control the fishing vessel, the captain of the Turkish vessel made a sudden change of course, resulting in the subsequent collision of the two vessels.

The fishing vessel then departed towards the Turkish coast, while the Coast Guard vessel remained in the area to assess the damage and provide assistance to the fishing vessel. After the removal of the Turkish fishing vessel, the Coast Guard vessel returned to the port of Samothraki, where minor material damage was found in its bow section.

What does the Turkish Coast Guard say?

In her statement she states that:

“On July 11, at 11:25 a.m., a Turkish-flagged fishing vessel named “Kızılelma-1” was reported to be fishing off Zurafa Lighthouse in Çanakkale’s Gökçeada area when it was harassed by the Greek Coast Guard, which came to the scene, passed close to the fishing vessel causing material damage to it, as it hit it on the front left side.4 Turkish coast guard vessels immediately rushed to the scene.

It was established that the Greek Coast Guard quickly moved away from the scene while the Turkish Coast Guard vessels were heading there, that there were no Greek Coast Guard vessels around the incident during the investigations that followed, that the crew members on board the fishing vessel were slightly injured by broken glass as a result of the collision. The fishing vessel was towed and taken to the port of Gökçeada.

Investigations into the incident are ongoing

The Turkish Coast Guard continues in its duty to protect the rights and interests in the country’s seas, within Turkish maritime jurisdictional zones, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”

However, it seems that at the same time the fisherman informed Gem Gurdeniz, the devotee of the blue homeland who wasted no time and uploaded a tweet where (according to an unofficial translation) among other things he says:

Warning, this tweet was posted after a phone call. Just now, at 11.44, İlker Özdemir, a patriot of the blue country, from Gökçeada, a fisherman who has stood up to the Greek coast guard in Zourafa in the North Aegean and defended our rights, called me and told me that a Greek vessel coast guard struck his boat 3 miles from the rocky island of Zurafa and caused it to take on water. After a minute the phone disconnected. I don’t know if his boat sank or not. February 3, 2022, a Greek vessel had threatened to sink our fisherman. I am confident that our Coast Guard vessels are doing whatever is necessary at the scene.