ISTANBUL
\nTurkey will no longer hold high-level talks with neighboring Greece, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday amid rising tensions between the traditional rivals.
\nAnkara resumed negotiations with Athens last year following a five-year break to address differences over a range of issues such as mineral exploration in the eastern Mediterranean and rival claims in the Aegean Sea.
\n\u201cWe broke off our high-level strategy council meetings with Greece,\u201d Erdogan told a meeting of his party\u2019s lawmakers in Ankara, adding: \u201cDon\u2019t you learn any lessons from history? Don\u2019t try to dance with Turkey.\u201d
\nThe talks had made little headway, but were a means for the two countries to air out their grievances without resorting to a potential armed standoff as had occurred as recently as two years ago.
\nErdogan\u2019s pivot on the talks appeared to have been triggered last week when he signaled his displeasure at comments made by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis during a trip to the U.S.
\nErdogan said Mitsotakis \u201cno longer exists\u201d for him after accusing the Greek leader of trying to block Turkey\u2019s acquisition of F-16 fighter planes.
\nErdogan also commented on Turkey\u2019s objection to Sweden and Finland joining NATO. Ankara has complained the Nordic states harbor terror suspects and arm a group in Syria it accuses of being an extension of the Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party, or PKK that has waged a 38-year insurgency inside Turkey. \u201cNATO is a security organization, not a support organization for terrorist organizations,\u201d he said.
\nThe U.S. and EU have categorized the PKK as a terror group. However, it\u2019s Syrian wing, the People\u2019s Protection Units, or YPG, has played a leading role in the U.S.-led fight against the Islamic State group.
\nErdogan said those who tried to legitimize the PKK with \u201cletter tricks\u201d were \u201cdeceiving themselves, not us.\u201d
\nThe president added that Turkey would not change its stance on the Swedish and Finnish NATO application without seeing \u201cbinding documents\u201d demonstrating a hardened approach to those Ankara considers terrorists.
\nRegarding a new cross-border military operation in Syria, Erdogan said Turkey was \u201centering a new phase\u201d in its goal to create a 30-kilometer (19-mile) buffer zone south of the frontier.
\nThe territory is controlled by a Syrian Kurdish administration and Ankara says it has been used to launch attacks on Turkey.
\nErdogan singled out the towns of Tall Rifat and Manbij as targets Turkey will be \u201cclearing of terrorists.\u201d Both lie west of the Euphrates river while the main Kurdish-controlled region is to the east.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISTANBUL Turkey will no longer hold high-level talks with neighboring Greece, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday amid rising tensions between the traditional rivals. Ankara resumed negotiations with Athens last year following a five-year break to address differences over a range of issues such as mineral exploration in the eastern Mediterranean and rival claims […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223059,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[498,2442,1385],"class_list":{"0":"post-263999","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-greece","9":"tag-tayyip-erdogan","10":"tag-turkey"},"yoast_head":"\n