

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has sparked anger with a proposal that two Greek border guards detained in the country since March be exchanged for eight Turkish officers who have sought asylum in Greece.

Only days after calling snap elections, Erdoğan raised the prospect of a trade-off, saying Ankara could return the soldiers if Athens first extradited the eight officers. “If they are handed to us, we will consider [Greece’s request],” the leader told the Turkish broadcaster NTV at the weekend, publicly linking the two cases for the first time.

In a tersely worded statement issued late on Sunday, the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, rebuffed the offer, calling it unacceptable.

“Regarding references to an exchange … we stress once more that it is unacceptable and is rejected,” his office said. “The position of Greece, and of the EU in its entirety, is clear and consistent: we seek the immediate release of the two soldiers without conditions.”

Insisting the Turkish servicemen had deliberately fled to the EU member state after participating in Turkey’s failed coup in July 2016, Erdogan claimed Ankara had already proposed the exchange to Greece. Despite rising tensions between the two countries, Turkey wanted good relations with its neighbour, he said.

“They’ve asked us to give back the Greek soldiers and we’ve told them ‘if you make such a demand, you should first give us the FETO soldiers involved in the coup against our state,’” he said. Erdogan and his neo-Islamist government use the term FETO to describe the movement of US-based cleric Fethullah Gülen, who has been accused of orchestrating the attempted coup.

Earlier, the Greek president, Prokopis Pavlopoulos, also rejected the offer out of hand while Athens’ defence minister, Panos Kammenos, said it provided further proof that the two men were being held as “hostages”.

Sgt Dimitris Kouklatzis, aged 27, and Lt Angelos Mitretodis, 25, were arrested after being found in a “forbidden military zone” by Turkish authorities in early March. They have been detained in a high-security jail pending trial in the border town of Edirne ever since.

Athens’ military command has argued the two accidentally strayed across the land border after getting lost in bad weather. The eight Turkish soldiers sought protection in Greece immediately after the abortive coup, landing their helicopter outside the northern town of Alexandroupolis. They deny involvement in the putsch.

Repeated requests for their extradition have been turned down, with Greece’s highest court ruling that the men would not receive a fair trial if they were to return. On Thursday, the tribunal went further still, approving the release from custody of one of the eight.

The Greek president described the idea of an exchange as “inconceivable”.

“It is truly regrettable that there should be such confusion between soldiers who are being held arbitrarily and Turkish citizens who have been granted political asylum in accordance with the rules of international law,” Pavlopoulos said.

Tensions between the Nato rivals have risen dramatically in recent months with disputes over isles and airspace in the Aegean Sea. Friction along the northern frontier has also grown since the arrest of the border guards with Greek authorities reporting a surge in arrivals of refugees and asylum seekers. A record 1,500 men, women and children, described as Kurds fleeing Syria’s Afrin district following Turkey’s military offensive into the area, crossed the Evros river traversing the frontier last week.

The European parliament has called on Turkey to release the Greek soldiers with MEPs saying accidental border crossings in the past had been settled “on the spot” by military authorities on both sides of the frontier separating the two countries.