Complaints voiced within Turkiye regarding the antique map presented as a gift to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew by the chief of the Hellenic National Defence General Staff, General Dimitrios Houpis, "border on the ludicrous," defence ministry sources stated on Friday.

They explained that the map, presented to Patriarch Bartholomew during a visit by General Houpis to Istanbul for the 18th Balkan Countries Chiefs of Defence Conference was the "Thraciae Veteris Typus" map drawn in 1585 by Flemish geographer and cartographer Abraham Ortelius. The map depicts the geographical region of Thrace and was selected because it includes - alongside the Dardenelles Strait, the Propontis (Marmara Sea), Bosporus Strait, Constantinople, the Black Sea, Thassos, Samothrace, Limnos and Tenedos - the Ecumenical Patriarch's own island of origin, Imbros (or Gokceada in present-day Turkiye).

For officials within Türkiye’s defence ministry to take issue with a map from this specific historical period, "while Türkiye in 2025 promotes the so-called ‘Blue Homeland’ map-a construct that exists only in their imagination and has no foundation in international law or the law of the sea-is truly absurd,” the Greek sources added.