Dogfights cost money

“No Turkish prime minister or president will apologize ... because of doing our duty,” [Turkish PM Ahmed] Davutoglu told reporters after meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels.“Protection of Turkish airspace, Turkish borders is a national duty, and our army did their job to protect this airspace."

Because Turkey is governed by serious, level-headed people who take their responsibilities as part of the NATO alliance very seriously. By the way, did I mention how serious these guys are?

... According to statistics collected by Christos Kollias, a Greek defense economist at the University of Thessaly, last year Turkish military helicopters and planes violated Greek-claimed airspace 2,244 times. For this May, Kollias recorded 361 Turkish incursions into Greek airspace.

At the beginning of this decade, Turkish planes entered Greek airspace several hundred times per year, including a record-low 636 times in 2013. That, in turn, was a decline from higher figures in the preceding years, but even the 1,678 incursions in 2009 do not approach the current activity. The result is constant hostile buzzing in the Mediterranean skies as the Hellenic Air Force responds to the intrusions...

...Dogfights cost money

In its current weakened state Greece hardly poses much of a threat to Turkey. The Turkish General Staff has not given an official reason for its increased air activity, and its spokesman referred inquiries to a local defense attaché, who did not respond.

Greece’s disastrous finances may, however, have encouraged Turkey  to tease its long-time foe (and NATO ally) a bit more than usual, as every Hellenic Air Force scramble costs Greece precious euros...

Yeah, right.