Greek Coast Guard stops Turkish journalists

The Greek coastguard stopped a group of Turkish journalists and the captain of their boat as they attempted to take photographs near the Greek island of Rho on Tuesday, Turkish and Greek officials said.

The journalists were questioned by the Greek coastguard until contact was made with the Turkish coastguard, when they were returned to the Turkish seaside resort of Kas, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

"There was no situation such as Greek authorities detaining the Turkish journalists," the statement said.

Turkey's state-run Anatolian news agency cited one of the journalists, Bekir Oner San, as saying the group had been briefly detained near the island, called Karaada in Turkish, and were told not to use their mobile phones before they were released.

The group had attempted to film Greek military personnel on the island, Anatolian said.

Greek authorities also said the group had not been detained. A Greek patrol boat intercepted the journalists as they neared Rho and checked their identification without boarding the boat, the officials said.

"Today at 17:35 (local time) we spotted a Turkish boat near the island of Rho," Theodoros Rentzeperis, chief of the Greek coastguard, said in a statement

"We went to check it, and after that we asked them to leave Greek waters immediately. The Turkish boat left at 18:10."

Rho is close to the Dodecanese island of Kastelorizo, Greece's eastern-most island located 1.3 kilometres (0.9 miles) off the Turkish coast.

A Greek Foreign Ministry official said Rho's territory is not in dispute.

Historical rivals Turkey and Greece nearly went to war in 1996 over control of the uninhabited island of Imia, or Kardak in Turkish.

Relations have since improved significantly and Greece now backs its Muslim neighbour's bid to join the European Union.

Nearly a decade of negotiations over their territorial disputes have yielded little progress towards a settlement. The two nations are also in dispute over the divided island of Cyprus.