ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece on Wednesday announced plans for managing human activities in maritime areas, such as tourism, offshore energy drilling, fishing and environmental protection, irking neighboring Turkey, which said the plans encroach on its jurisdiction.
The announcement about Greece’s Maritime Spatial Planning came after the country was rebuked by the European Court of Justice earlier this year for failing to submit the plans to the European Commission, as all coastal European Union member states are required to do. Spatial planning for sea areas is considered necessary for the sustainable use of marine resources, setting out where activities such as transport, tourism, fishing and renewable energy projects can take place, and for the protection of marine environments.
But Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said some of the areas specified in Greece’s plan “violate our country’s maritime jurisdiction areas in the Aegean Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean.”
Although NATO allies, Greece and Turkey have been at loggerheads for years over boundaries in the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean, with escalating tension bringing them close to war several times in recent decades. One of the main contentions between the two is the delineation of the continental shelf – the proportion of the seabed that belongs to each country, as well as with the boundaries of each one’s exclusive economic zone.
Greece has agreements in place delineating its exclusive economic zones with Italy and with Egypt, but not with Turkey.
“We would like to remind the need to avoid unilateral actions in enclosed or semi-enclosed seas such as in the Aegean and the Mediterranean,” Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement, adding that “international maritime law encourages cooperation between coastal states in the seas in question, including concerning environmental issues, and that in this context, our country is always ready to cooperate with Greece in the Aegean Sea.”
Greece’s Foreign Ministry said the Maritime Spatial Planning was separate from the delineation of the exclusive economic zone. In a series of explanatory notes posted on its website, the Foreign Ministry said it still aimed to maintain dialogue with Turkey.
“That we’re solving pending issues from the past doesn’t mean we don’t seek Greek-Turkish dialogue. That we disagree doesn’t mean that we don’t talk,” the ministry said. “Greece wants a positive climate in relations with Turkey.”
FILE - Tourists enjoy the beach and the sea in Lindos, on the Aegean Sea island of Rhodes, southeastern Greece, on Thursday, July 27, 2023. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris, File)
DENVER (AP) — A soldier present at an after-hours nightclub where more than 100 immigrants suspected of being in the U.S. illegally were taken into custody last weekend has been charged with distributing cocaine, court records show.
Staff Sgt. Juan Gabriel Orona-Rodriguez, who is assigned to Fort Carson, an Army post near the illegal club in Colorado Springs, was arrested Wednesday evening, the FBI said in a statement.
Orona-Rodriquez has been charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine and distribution and possession with intent to distribute cocaine, according to an arrest affidavit. It said he allegedly sold cocaine to an undercover agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration days before the raid.
It wasn't immediately known if Orona-Rodriguez — a member of the 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team in the 4th Infantry Division — had a lawyer ahead of an expected court appearance Thursday.
The FBI said the arrest followed an investigation by the DEA, the Department of the Army Criminal Investigation Division and officials at Fort Carson.
More than 300 law enforcement officers and officials from multiple agencies participated in Sunday’s operation at the nightclub, which had been under investigation for months for alleged activities including drug trafficking, prostitution and “crimes of violence,” said Jonathan Pullen, special agent in charge of the DEA’s Rocky Mountain Division.
Cocaine was among the drugs found, Pullen said at a news conference.
Orona-Rodriquez was one of about 17 active-duty U.S. Army service members who were at the club, known as Warike, when it was raided early Sunday, the affidavit said.
He appears to have held a leadership role in a business that provides armed security at nightclubs, including at Warike, according to the document. However, it did not say whether he was working security there at the time of the raid. It notes that he had been warned by his commanding officer this spring that he could not work for the security company.
Rodriguez received more than a dozen Army awards during his almost nine years in service, including an Army Commendation Medal with combat device, which is earned during a deployment where the soldier was “performing meritoriously under the most arduous combat conditions,” according to Army descriptions of the award.
Of the 17 soldiers who were at the venue at the time of the raid, 16 were patrons and one was working there in a security role, a U.S. official said on the condition of anonymity to provide details not yet made public. Sixteen of the soldiers there were assigned to Fort Carson, the official did not know where the seventeenth was assigned.
Investigators suspect Orona-Rodriguez was getting cocaine from an unidentified Mexican citizen who is “unlawfully present in the United States without admission,” according to the affidavit.
President Donald Trump posted a link to the DEA video of the raid on his social media site, Truth Social. “A big Raid last night on some of the worst people illegally in our Country — Drug Dealers, Murderers, and other Violent Criminals, of all shapes and sizes,” the president wrote.
Associated Press writer Tara Copp in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.
In this image taken from video released by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, officers stop a patron from a nightclub where a raid occurred Sunday, April 27, 2025, in Colorado Springs, Colo. (U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration via AP)
In this image taken from video released by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, a law enforcement officer with a weapon drawn is shown at a nightclub where a raid occurred Sunday, April 27, 2025, in Colorado Springs, Colo. (U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration via AP)
