Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wanted to provoke a military incident with Greece in the Eastern Mediterranean for his political survival, Die Welt reported.

The report, entitled “Erdogan’s calculated war,” said that “if it depended on the Turkish President, his navy would have sunk a Greek ship in the Mediterranean a long time ago,” ekathimerini reported.

In particular, the newspaper, citing Turkish military sources, writes that Erdogan a few days ago asked Turkish generals to sink a Greek ship and do it so that no one would die in the process. When the generals refused, another official offered to shoot down the Greek fighter so the pilot could eject to escape. But the Turkish generals again refused.