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By Humeyra Pamuk WASHINGTON, Oct 13 (Reuters) \u2013 The United States on Tuesday slammed Turkey\u2019s renewed push to send a vessel to carry out seismic surveys in the eastern Mediterranean, accusing Ankara of unilaterally stoking tensions and \u201cdeliberately\u201d complicating the resumption of talks with Greece.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe United States deplores Turkey\u2019s October 11 announcement of renewed Turkish survey activity in areas over which Greece asserts jurisdiction in the eastern Mediterranean,\u201d State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement while urging Ankara to cease its survey activities.<\/p>\n
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\u201cCoercion, threats, intimidation, and military activity will not resolve tensions in the eastern Mediterranean. We urge Turkey to end this calculated provocation and immediately begin exploratory talks with Greece,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
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Tensions in the eastern Mediterranean have risen over claims and counter claims pitting Turkey against Greece and Cyprus to maritime areas thought to be rich in natural gas. Both Turkey and Greece are NATO allies.<\/p>\n
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Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said it was Greece, not Turkey, that was escalating tensions in the Aegean and the Mediterranean Sea.<\/p>\n
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On Monday, Turkish ship Oruc Reis set sail to carry out seismic surveys in the eastern Mediterranean, prompting Greece to issue a furious new demand for European Union sanctions on Ankara in a row over offshore exploration rights.<\/p>\n
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Both Germany and France expressed their concern after Oruc Reis began its voyage. Greece\u2019s foreign ministry described the move as a \u201cmajor escalation\u201d and a \u201cdirect threat to peace in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The Oruc Reis intends to carry out work south of the Greek island of Kastellorizo, which is close to Turkey\u2019s coast.<\/p>\n
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Last month U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Cyprus and Greece, including the island of Crete in the eastern Mediterranean, as Washington lifted a 33-year arms embargo on Cyprus, deepening its security cooperation with Nicosia. The move prompted an angry response from Turkey at the time.<\/p>\n
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(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Doina Chiacu Editing by Marguerita Choy and Steve Orlofsky)<\/p>\n
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(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2020.<\/em><\/p>\n gCaptain<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Humeyra Pamuk WASHINGTON, Oct 13 (Reuters) \u2013 The United States on Tuesday slammed Turkey\u2019s renewed push to send a vessel to carry out seismic surveys in the eastern Mediterranean, accusing Ankara of unilaterally stoking tensions and \u201cdeliberately\u201d complicating the resumption of talks with Greece. \u201cThe United States deplores Turkey\u2019s October 11 announcement of renewed …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16630,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[2248,8539,5164,3212,1070,1818,468,547],"class_list":["post-19357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marine-world","tag-east","tag-flare","tag-med","tag-sends","tag-ship","tag-survey","tag-tensions","tag-turkey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/16630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}