Le Drian: The European Council will discuss later this month imposing sanctions on Turkey

 French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian announced that the European Council will discuss during its meeting scheduled for later this month the imposition of sanctions on the Turkish regime against the backdrop of its continuing illegal exploration operations in the eastern Mediterranean.

“During the European Council meeting , the Turkey file will be proposed, as we prepared it down several days ago with foreign ministers in Berlin to enumerate the response ways that we can use against it,” Le Drian told France Inter radio today.

Despite his refusal to specify what the possible sanctions are, Le Drian confirmed that there is “a whole series of measures that can be taken. We are not at all disabled and the President of the Turkish regime, Recep Tayyip Erdogan knows this well”, hinting to the imposition of a set of economic sanctions. He pointed out that Erdogan works to veil the reality of the economic situation in Turkey.

The European Council, which includes heads of state and governments of the European Union, will hold a meeting on the 24-25 of September.

The Turkish regime continues its provocative steps in the eastern Mediterranean, where it revealed through a map it published its ambitions for gas exploration in areas off the coast of Greek islands. It has recently sent a seismic survey ship accompanied by two military ships off the shores of the Greek island of Kastelorizo in the southeast of the Aegean Sea.  Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades warned two days ago that his island is facing a “very dangerous situation” due to “provocations and violations” of the Turkish regime of international law and “ the exclusive economic zone of Cyprus”.

Inas Abdulkareem