ATHENS: A Greek court has ruled that 12 Turks arrested in northern Greece on accusations of participating in an international criminal group smuggling weapons into the country should be detained pending trial, legal sources said on Thursday.
Greek police last week located a group of 15 people close to the Evros river at the Greek-Turkish border. They arrested most of them and confiscated two sacks and one suitcase near them, containing 147 pistols, dozens of bullets and weapons components wrapped in plastic bags.
The 12 suspects are accused of illegally entering Greece and smuggling weapons with the aim of supplying Turkish or other criminal groups active in the country. They have denied any wrongdoing, saying they are migrants and the guns were in the boat that traffickers used to cross the river.
Over the past years, Greece has seen a significant rise in the number of Turkish nationals involved in shootings or arrested for gun possession. Police, according to sources, have linked the increase to a bigger presence in Greece of Turkish criminal groups and gang members settling old scores on foreign ground.
Turks in northern Greece held pending trial for smuggling weapons
https://arab.news/27725
Turks in northern Greece held pending trial for smuggling weapons
- Greek police last week located a group of 15 people close to the Evros river at the Greek-Turkish border
- The 12 suspects are accused of illegally entering Greece and smuggling weapons with the aim of supplying Turkish or other criminal groups active in the country
Zelensky says Russia preparing for new ‘year of war’
- Putin earlier said Russia would achieve its goals in its Ukraine offensive, including seizing Ukrainian territories it claims as its own
KYIV, Ukraine: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday Russia was preparing to wage a new “year of war” on his country in 2026, after his counterpart Vladimir Putin said Moscow would “certainly” achieve its objectives.
“Today, we heard yet another signal from Moscow that they are preparing to make next year a year of war,” Zelensky said in his regular evening address.
The statement was a reaction to Putin, who earlier said Russia would achieve its goals in its Ukraine offensive, including seizing Ukrainian territories it claims as its own, amid a flurry of international diplomacy to end the war.
“The goals of the special military operation will certainly be achieved,” Putin told a meeting with defense ministry officials in Moscow, using the Kremlin’s wording for the nearly four-year war.
“We would prefer to do this and eliminate the root causes of the conflict through diplomacy,” he said, vowing to seize the Ukrainian lands Russia claims to have annexed “by military means” if “the opposing country and its foreign patrons refuse to engage in substantive discussions.”
Putin’s hawkish comments come as Ukraine on Monday hailed “progress” made on the question of future security guarantees for Kyiv, after two days of talks with US President Donald Trump’s envoys in Berlin.
But according to Zelensky, differences remain on the question of what territories Ukraine would have to cede to Russia.
Washington’s initial proposal — criticized by Ukraine and its allies as overly favorable to Russia — would have seen Kyiv withdraw from its eastern Donetsk region and the United States de facto recognize the Donetsk, Crimea and Lugansk regions as Russian.
Zelensky at EU summit
The current contents of the revised plan remain unclear.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Kremlin said Russia was waiting for information from the US on the outcome of the talks in Berlin.
“We expect that, as soon as they are ready, our American counterparts will inform us of the results of their work with the Ukrainians and the Europeans,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
In September 2022, Russia claimed to have officially annexed the Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Lugansk and Kherson regions, even though it did not have full military control over all of them.
Zelensky is expected to attend a summit in Brussels on Thursday to lobby European Union leaders to adopt a plan to use frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine’s defenses.
He said in his evening address that Putin’s bellicose signals “are not only for us.”
“It is important that our partners see this, and important that they not only see it but also respond, including our partners in the United States of America, who often say that Russia supposedly wants to end the war,” he said, accusing Moscow of trying to “undermine diplomacy.”
