Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Collision of Greek boat, Turkish vessel caught on video

ATHENS, Greece — Video footage has surfaced of the moment a Turkish coast guard vessel collided with a stationary Greek patrol boat near a pair of Aegean Sea islets over which the two countries almost went to war in 1996.

Cameras on the Greek coast guard boat recorded two videos. They show the Turkish vessel hitting or scraping the Greek one near the stern.

It's not clear from the footage if the contact on Monday night was deliberate, resulted by mistake from a threatening maneuver, or another cause.

The vessels were off the uninhabited Imia islets — Kardak in Turkish — which both countries claim.

Tensions between the NATO allies already were rising over the warships Turkey deployed in recent days to block a drilling rig from reaching a location off of Cyprus.