Greece prime minister says Turkish jets 'buzzed' his helicopter on his way to Greek independence day celebration

Alexis Tsipras was on his way to celebrations on the island of Agathonisi

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras

The Greek prime minister says Turkish fighter jets buzzed his official helicopter as he flew to a Greek island on Monday to mark an uprising against Ottoman rule.

“They forced the helicopter I was on to manoeuvre low until Greek jets intercepted the forces violating our national air space," Alexis Tsipras said in a speech after the incident on the island of Agathonisi.

“The message I want to send them is that such foolish actions have no meaning, they spend their gasoline for nothing. We will always be there to defend our national integrity.”

Agathonisi lies just 10 miles from Turkey's Mediterranean coast and was the site of an 1821 uprising against Ottoman rule at the start of the Greek war of independence.

Greeks mark their independence day on the date of the uprising, which is a national holiday across the country.

A Greek military official told the Reuters news agency that a Greek F-16 fighter jet intercepted the Turkish warplanes around four miles away from Mr Tsipras’s helicopter.

“I had the honour of welcoming you here in Agathonisi and some fighter aircrafts of the Turkish air force, perhaps for the day, wanted to participate in the celebration," Mr Tsipras joked. “What do they think they are doing?”

Though both Greek and Turkey are members of Nato, the two countries have long had a testy relationship, with longstanding historical animosity of the legacy of Ottoman occupation and a dispute over the status of Cyprus.

Despite a period of reconciliation around the turn of the century, relations between the two countries have recently deteriorated years after Greece declined to extradite eight Turkish soldiers who were accused by the Turkish government of being involved a failed 2016 military coup.

The question of airspace and territorial waters in the Aegean sea is also a long-running a matter of dispute between the two countries.

Though the countries were last at war in 1922, incidents such as the expulsion of Greeks from Istanbul in the 1960s and the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 tested relations throughout the 20th century.

Despite the difficulties, the two countries’ governments have made some efforts to improve relations. In 2017, president Recep Tayyip Erdogan became the first Turkish leader to formally visit Greece for 65 years.