Ektoras Gialopsos

A ‘sacrifice that could have been avoided’

It's 1996 and Greece is on a collision course with Turkey over a cluster of islets in the eastern Aegean. Twenty-seven years later, one of the protagonists of the Imia crisis, the regular commander of the area and captain of the Navarinon frigate, retired vice admiral Ioannis Lioulis, speaks about events that have never been made public before, in an exclusive interview with Kathimerini.

Kammenos' final act, from Imia

Always one for the grand gesture, outgoing Defense Minister Panos Kammenos, decided to use the ministerial Huey helicopter _ which he mistakenly calls HU1 instead of UH-1 in his Tweet _ to fly over the Imia islets, site of a 1996 incident between Greece and Turkey that brought the to countries to the brink of war.