ATHENS (AFP) - Nearly two in three Greeks want their country to "block" Turkey's entry into the European Union following the mid-air collision last week of Greek and Turkish jet fighters in which a Greek pilot died, according to a poll published Sunday.

Some 64 percent of those surveyed said Greece should block Turkey's EU membership bid and scrap its policy of rapprochement with its neighbor and long-standing regional rival, the poll found, published in the daily Ethnos.

Just 23.4 percent of the 800 surveyed in Athens and Salonika, Greece's second city, favored Turkey's accession into the 25-nation bloc, which must approve new members unanimously.

Greece and its other EU partners agreed in October to open membership negotiations with Turkey even though public opinion in Greece was evenly divided on the issue, according to a poll carried out at the time.

Concerning bilateral relations, 67 percent of respondents in the Ethnos poll said that the Greek government had a "flexible" attitude towards Turkish claims, while 26 percent said they believed the opposite.

However, 52 percent said they thought relations had improved in recent years compared with 39 percent who thought they had not.

The poll was carried out by the Alco Institute over the three days immediately following the incident last Tuesday.

According to Athens, the Greek F-16 was on a reconnaissance mission after three Turkish planes -- two F-16s and an F-4 -- penetrated the flight zone overseen by the Athens airport control tower.

Turkey's military on Wednesday said the Greek fighter jet had "harassed" the Turkish plane and crashed into it. The military alleged the Turkish plane was technically in international Mediterranean airspace and not the Aegean as initially reported.

Despite a significant thaw in their traditionally tense ties, NATO allies Turkey and Greece remain at odds over territorial rights in the Aegean, and Ankara is under EU pressure to resolve the issue.

At the core of the dispute is Greece's claim of an airspace extending to 10 miles (16 kilometres) around its coastline. Turkey recognises only six miles, arguing that under international rules Greece's airspace cannot go beyond its territorial waters.

In 1996, the two neighbours nearly went to war over an uninhabited rocky islet in the Aegean, but the United States stepped in and defused the tension.