On November 21, Turkey announced through a NAVTEX from Antalya Station, that its research vessel Oruc Reis accompanied by the vessels Ataman and Cengiz Han, would once again conduct seismic research activities in the proximity of the Greek-Turkish maritime borders.

The announcement by the Turkish Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources indicated that the nine-day process, would be the final act of the month-long activity of the vessel, which has prompted much tension between the two neighboring countries. As this chapter is to be concluded quite soon, analysts are now focusing on how much Turkey achieved of its objectives and what is likely to happen next in the Eastern Mediterranean context.

Ankara Uses Diplomatic Pressure After Achieving Main Objectives

In previous days, senior Turkish officials — including President Recep Erdogan — have called upon the EU to act “impartially” and stop targeting Turkey. During a recent speech to fellow Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) or AKP members, the Turkish President emphasized that Turkey is a part of Europe and fully supports an EU perspective for his country. However he highlighted that at the same time, the leading EU countries should keep their promises to Turkey.

Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs  Mevlüt Çavuşoğl also stated in front of the Turkish Parliament that the European Union should acknowledge its mistakes. At the same time, Hami Aksoy, spokesman of the Turkish Foreign Ministry, slammed Athens for the Greek unwillingness to engage in dialogue with Ankara, and personally attacked Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias for his recent open criticism of Turkey.

Ankara Wants de Facto Control of Greek Maritime Territory

Ankara is turning to this sort of diplomacy and adopts this strategy of public grievance at a key point for the Turkish endeavors in Eastern Mediterranean. As we have mentioned in previous articles, Ankara has been looking to establish de facto control in Greek maritime zones.

Once the first NAVTEX was published from the Antalya station last summer covering parts of this region, major controversy arose in Greece and the issue made the headlines; at the same time the Greek Armed Forces have been fully mobilized across the country.

The latest NAVTEX from Antalya is directly stating that the vessel will conduct research in the Turkish Continental Shelf (a term that the Turkish side has been carefully avoiding) and also the zones enclosed in the Navigational Warning are located in the immediate proximity of — if not overlapping — the Greek territorial waters, namely six nautical miles or less from the Greek island of Kastelorizo.

Athens Has Made Many Mistakes and Failed to Engage in Strategic Long-Term Planning

Surprisingly, this latest development has been hardly covered from the major Greek media, while some commentators rushed to present Turkey’s wrapping up of seismic research activity as a Greek success; apparently all these media — probably on purpose — have missed the main point here: the end of the seismic research by no means indicate an actual Turkish withdrawal. It should be simply perceived as the end of the research phase in the Greek maritime zones, setting the ground for the next moves, according to long-term Turkish plans.

Amidst this unprecedented situation for Athens, some major mistakes from the point of the Greek side should be highlighted. First, Greece seemed to be putting too much effort to manipulate the domestic public opinion, rather than pragmatically handling the real challenges, ensuing from the Turkish claims. This dubious stance gave Turkey the necessary room to keep pushing further its positions, while Ankara apprehended that its neighboring country would hardly manage efficiently any provocations in both domestic and international level.

Greece is Too Dependent on Foreign Support

Greece has also been relying too heavily on foreign support, especially from the EU. As thoroughly examined in previous articles, the major EU nations — excluding France — are unwilling to directly challenge Turkey, considering their bilateral economic ties and the political balances across the continent. Therefore, Greek hopes have been rather unfounded, and the sought-after sanctions against Turkey have always been too little too late; and this will keep happening unless major changes are made.

Finally the most critical mistake from the Greek side in this dispute, has been the lack of a strategic plan towards Turkey and the absence of an adequate response mechanism that would block Ankara from establishing de facto conditions in the Greek maritime boundaries.

Paradoxically Athens has neglected the essence of strategic planning both in diplomatic and operational level, totally losing the initiative and forming its actions according to the Turkish moves. The unfortunate comment of Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis last September regarding  — once again — the activity of the Oruc Reis is perfectly indicative of this whole ongoing situation. As previously analyzed, the Greek administration consistently failed to correctly interpret Turkish maneuvers and never implemented a long-term or realistic policy towards their neighbors.

What’s Turkey’s Next Move?

Ankara has been executing a well-planned strategy to establish Turkish claims across Eastern Mediterranean. Judging from the Turkish moves in northern Cyprus and Ankara’s unilateral drilling activities, alongside the aggressive rhetoric after Ersin Tatar’s victory in the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, we should only expect Turkish demands to keep increasing.

Any de-escalation from the Turkish side is out of the question for now. The latest statements regarding the European Union indicate that Turkey will seek to keep a balance with the major EU powers while Ankara keeps expanding westwards in the Mediterranean Sea.

With regards to the dispute with Greece, if we accept that this really will be the last operation of Oruc Reis in the area, we can anticipate two different courses of action. Either Ankara will proceed to unilateral drilling during 2021 in the zones where the research vessel has been conducting seismic studies or Greece and Turkey will come to an agreement for joint exploitation of the resources in the area under question.

The latter scenario would likely be welcomed by the Greek administration, going by the lackluster approach that Athens has taken up to this point.

L'articolo What’s Next for Turkey’s Oruc Reis Research Vessel after Greece? proviene da InsideOver.

The Turkish Research Vessel Oruç Reis returned to the port of Antalya, on September 13, ending more than a month of seismic research activity across the Mediterranean and within the Greek maritime zones.

Even though the rationale behind this move has not yet been fully defined, several commentators rushed to assess that this could be a decisive step for the much-anticipated deescalation in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Oruç Reis Returns to Antalya

The Multi-Purpose Research Vessel Oruç Reis, is one of the landmark research ships owned by the Turkish General Directorate Of Mineral Research And Explorations. Over the last few months, the controversial research activity of the vessel has monopolized the attention in the Greek, Turkish and international media.

Tension started rising on July 21, when the Antalya Navtex Station issued a warning for seismic research, covering a part of the Greek continental shelf; an area where Turkey unilaterally is not recognizing any Greek sovereign rights at all. The planned activities have been cancelled after behind-the-scenes negotiations among Germany, Greece and Turkey, temporarily slowing the regional friction.

However shortly after the Greek-Egyptian deal over the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) of the two countries, Ankara replied with a new NAVTEX and Oruç Reis entered the Greek Maritime Zones on August 10, 2020. With consecutive NAVTEX warnings the Turkish vessel has been conducting research in the aforementioned area for just over a month, officially ending its activity on September 13.

All this time Oruç Reis was accompanied by the ships Cengiz Han and Ataman of the Turkish Navy. When the crisis started in August, Greek officials wrongfully focused on trying to persuade the public that the Turkish vessel was just sailing in the Greek zones, rather than actually conducting research. This purposeless move aimed to manage the domestic political reaction in Greece and enhance the international standing of the country.

Once the news about the Turkish planned return of the Oruç Reis to the port of Antalya was publicized, the Greek Government swiftly welcomed it.

A Doubtful Gesture of Goodwill and the Greek Reaction

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis held a Press Conference on September 13, as a part of the well-known Thessaloniki Helexpo Forum in Northern Greece. The Greek PM made numerous important announcements for the Greek Defense and Foreign Policy; the strong French-Greek  partnership in the fields of Defense and Security has been officially confirmed with the Prime Minster announcing that the Mirage-2000 aircraft will be gradually replaced by the novel Rafale Jets by 2022.

He further stated that the Greek Defense expenditure has been reduced during the years of the long financial crisis that hit the country and steps will be taken to reverse this situation, however Athens is not willing to enter an arms race with its neighbors, repeating major mistakes of the past.

The exodus of Oruç Reis has been perceived in Greece as a positive first step and Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced that he is ready to start a dialogue with President Erdogan, given that no further provocative moves will take place. The Greek Prime Minister clarified that if Turkey shows signs of cooperation, Athens will be the first to enter the negotiation process.

Turkey’s Statements

However, the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu clarified in an interview for the Turkish NTV media network, that the ship would be only taken for maintenance, implying that a potential return of Oruç Reis in the Greek continental shelf is possible. In another interview for the Anadolu Agency, the Turkish Defence Minister, Hulusi Akar, highlighted that the return of the research vessel by no means indicates that Ankara is willing to give up its rights in the area.

The above statements suggest that there is a quite different approach between Greece and Turkey in the level of top officials. On the one hand, Athens is struggling to find a sign of good will from Turkey and publicly points out such a development, while the Turkish officials are seeking to denounce any Greek deescalating announcements and further impede the context of negotiations.

Also Ankara has undoubtedly established a notable success with the presence of Oruç Reis in the Greek Continental Shelf for over a month; indeed, Ankara managed to create a de facto situation by directly questioning the Greek sovereign rights in the region and the lukewarm Greek reaction certainly leaves an open window for similar Turkish action in the near future.

Greek President Visiting Kastelorizo Amid Harsh Turkish Criticism

In the meantime, Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou recently paid an official visit to the Greek island of Kasteorizo on Sunday, September 13; Kastelorizo is located only a couple of miles away from the Turkish mainland.

The Greek President was there to celebrate the 77^th anniversary of the liberation of the island. The Kastelorizo complex has been in the epicenter of the Greek-Turkish tension of the last few months, and Hulusi Akar ceased the opportunity to unjustly criticize the Greek President’s move. Akar, publicly asked why Kastelorizo has been specifically chosen for this celebration and not any of the other Greek islands, apparently ignoring the fact that it was only this islet that has been liberated by the Hellenic Navy and the Allied Forces on September 13, 1943.

In a controversial action the Turkish Defense Minister visited the small Turkish town of Kas in Antalya Province, while the Greek President was on Kastelorizo. Kas is directly neighboring the small Greek island and Akar was accompanied by all the senior officials of the Turkish military leadership.

The latest developments show that even though the Greek side is seeking to set the ground for bilateral negotiations with its neighbors, Ankara is not willing to back down and will probably keep acting provocatively until the ideal point for the pushing through Turkish claims is reached.

L'articolo Should Greece be Celebrating the Departure of the Turkish Ship Oruç Reis? proviene da InsideOver.

The dangerous waters of the eastern Mediterranean have once again brought Turkey under the spotlight. The succession of events in the quadrant stretching from the Aegean to the seas around Cyprus is still looking murky.

The Current Situation in the Eastern Mediterranean

Ankara has sent the survey ship Oruç Reis with an escort of military craft to explore the seabed. Greece reacted with a series of military maneuvers and opened an anti-Turkish blockade in Mare Nostrum with France as one of its leading partners. The challenge is leading to an increasing deployment of air-sea forces with the risk that the slightest spark could trigger a conflict whose boundaries and effects are hard to predict.

But what matters is to understand why this escalation has come about. Why are tensions rocking the Aegean and the Levant, and why are Greek, Turkish, French, Italian and American ships and UAE fighters scrambling to active duty stations?

The Blue Homeland Doctrine

To understand this, we have to start with Turkey, a country that has increased its outward thrust in recent years. It has decided to turn its gaze beyond its borders in all directions and enlarge its sphere of influence. First it adopted and exploited the “strategic depth” conceived by Ahmet Davutoglu. Now, however, with its thrust moving from the land towards the sea, this return of Turkey to the international theater has a name that echoes with increasing force: Mavi Vatan, or the Blue Homeland doctrine. We discussed it with Cem Gürdeniz, admiral of the Turkish Navy, the first to coin this term and promote it. Today Mavi Vatan is the symbol of Ankara’s Mediterranean strategy.

“Mavi Vatan rests on three pillars. The first pillar is the symbol of Turkey’s growing maritime claims in the Twenty First Century. Turkey had a maritime vision that has sadly been curtailed over the centuries. Ataturk sought to revitalize it, but after him no one really focused on developing a capable navy. We depend on the sea for resources, trade and the state’s very existence. The Turkish government and people have returned to this  mindset in recent years, realising how much they need the sea. That is why this doctrine is a symbol.”

But this means moving from symbolism to practice, and from this point of view, the other two pillars are fundamental to understanding what Turkey wants. Gurdeniz continues his explanation.

“The second pillar of Mavi Vatan is a definition,” explains Gurdeniz. “It defines areas of maritime jurisdiction, meaning the territorial waters, the continental shelf and the EEZ. In this context Mavi Vatan is a defensive approach to protecting our areas of maritime jurisdiction, in particular against the Seville Map prepared for the EU and imposed on Turkey.”

This definition is strongly correlated to the third pillar, the doctrine. “To protect, safeguard and develop maritime rights and national interests, Mavi Vatan develops secondary doctrines such as the deployment of the navy, the development of our defense industry, the use of seismic research vessels and drilling rigs, the development of support bases for the national and foreign fleet and legal instruments and arguments for signing boundary agreements with other seaboard states.” The reference is to the memorandum with Libya of 27 November 2019. This is a point the admiral often returns to: the good neighbor policy. “The doctrine seeks to establish good relations with our neighbors based on an equal share of the rule of the sea. Mavi Vatan does not necessarily lead to conflicts. Rather it fosters good relations with other powers such as Egypt, Israel, Malta and Italy.”

What About the Current Tensions with Greece?

One question naturally arises at this point, especially concerning what is happening in the eastern Mediterranean with Athens.

IO: Admiral Gurdeniz, how do you think a doctrine like Mavi Vatan can coexist with the interests of other countries and international law?

“Today’s problem with the European Union and the United States is a problem of perception. For centuries Turkey has been seen as a land-based power. The main reason for what is happening now is that with Mavi Vatan this perception has changed. We have turned to the sea without the least intention of withdrawing. The main problem at present is the Seville Map. If we are deprived of hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of sovereign waters by this map, with boundaries that strangle Turkey and debar it from the sea, then it becomes a problem. The Atlantic system enforces a system compelling Turkey to remain in Anatolia. This map prevents Turkey from reaching the oceans. It is intentionally designed to take Turkey out of its role in the Mediterranean and Mediterranean geopolitics. It is impossible for Turkey to accept the second version of the Treaty of Sèvres, especially now that energy resources are being discovered and the boundaries fail to authorize it.”

IO: These words, these concepts, are very reminiscent of some speeches by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“I am a Kemalist. Mavi Vatan is a policy that protects the interests of the state and is absolutely foreign to neo-Ottoman views, expansionism and Islamism. Mavi Vatan is a defensive doctrine against the demands and impositions of the EU and the United States based on the Seville Map. It defends international rules, the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice and the Permanent Court of Arbitration with previous decisions on maritime boundary conflicts. Mavi Vatan is beyond politics, it has no direct connection with any political party. However, it does provide information about state policy,” Gurdenez stated.

We are beyond politics, therefore also beyond the State and beyond Turkey

“Turkey is not alone in the Mediterranean” explains Gurdeniz. “Turkey also represents the Turkish world: it represents the peoples from Kazakhstan to the Balkans who have no coasts. The Turkish Republic is the only country that can enable this world to be a maritime power and give these peoples an outlet to the sea and the rest of the world. We have to think about all these peoples and states. There is an area of interest, cooperation and coordination that stretches as far as the Persian Gulf, Aden and the whole of the Mediterranean to the oceans. Italy has aircraft carriers, for example, and they’re a crucial weapon because it means the navy protects its national economic and political interests. Italy coined the concept of an enlarged Mediterranean, expressing the urge to project itself beyond its coasts. Turkey has to extend its area of operation and in case of an emergency it needs to have operational bases abroad to operate from, such as Libya, the Republic of Northern Cyprus, Djibouti, Albania and Qatar.”

‘The Turkish Navy Has to Expand’

This is a concept that Admiral Gurdeniz stressed repeatedly.

“The Turkish Navy has to expand. This is a natural reaction to its growth as a regional power and as it makes the breakthrough. Turkey is growing as a member of the G20, with 83 million inhabitants and a major defence industry. A fundamental step that cannot be overlooked as neighbors like Greece and Cyprus seek to deprive Turkey of sovereignty and maritime rights. The world is changing, there are new poles and we are moving towards multi-polarity. China and Russia are changing the unipolar world based on the Pax Americana. Italy itself has signed an agreement with China for the Silk Road.”

IO: Speaking of Italy, Admiral how do you see relations between Italy and Turkey now or how they should be in future? Some recent episodes have revealed fault lines between the two countries but also strong synergies in certain areas

“In the case of Italy, it is possible for Turkey and Italy to be either partners or rivals. Geopolitically, Italy and Turkey could be rivals. They are two strongly maritime countries that have or want to have control of the Mediterranean or part of it. Italy has a double front, on the western and eastern Mediterranean, and occupies a very critical and special position, which is also its strength. France and Germany are pushing for an Italy positioned in a certain way, but the problem starts with the Atlantic system. Italy has a strong Atlantic culture but at the same time it also has a Eurasian thrust and could have interests other than those of the system headed by Washington. This unites it with Germany. Turkey had within it one school linked to Gülen, instigated by NATO and the Atlantic system. But part of the country is opposed to it, because the US military presence and US strategic policy are seen as problems. Turkey is as close to Eurasian politics as Italy appears to be, which is the only G8 power on the Silk Road and we have common interests in Libya and North Africa. This is something that France rejects and it is pressing for its own independent force in the Mediterranean, as has happened and is happening in Lebanon.”

IO: Participation in the “Eunomia” exercises with Greece indicates that Italy seems closer to the Western bloc. Although there was a Passex exercise with the Turkish Navy as well. 

“As for the exercises, Turkey conducts them continually and it is a policy of balance. We shouldn’t be surprised by the exercises. We can conduct them with anyone and everyone performs them with different powers.”

IO: As for Greece, Eunomia and what is happening between Athens and Ankara, what do you, Cem Gurdeniz, think of it, as the creator of Mavi Vatan and the strategist of Turkish expansion at sea?

“The rift between Greece and Turkey is neither political nor legal: it is geopolitical. Greece acts as the ‘prosecutor’ of the Euro-Atlantic system, which Turkey sees as failing to respect the international system and the law of the sea. The Seville Map gives the whole continental shelf of the Aegean to Greece. Kastellorizo ​​(the island at the centre of the current escalation ed.) takes 40,000 square kilometres out of the Turkish continental shelf despite having just 20 kilometres of coastline. The Anatolian peninsula has 1600 kilometres. So it is contrary to the reality posited by international law. It is a map dictated, handed down from above, and Turkey will never accept it.”

IO: Do you think it could be the prelude to war?

“I think that there will be no armed clashes because if Greece, with or without its EU and NATO partners, attacks Turkey, it would be the end of the Atlantic Alliance. And without Turkey there would be an acceleration of the new world order, with Ankara moving east. I think the world should persuade the Greeks to give up their unacceptable, unrealistic and irrational claims both in the Aegean and the rest of the Mediterranean. I repeat: if Greece threatens or carries out acts of war, there would be repercussions in the world order, not just the region.”

IO: Speaking of NATO in crisis, this escalation in the Aegean and the French dynamism bring to mind the words of Emmanuel Macron, who described the Alliance as in a state of “brain death”. This sounds true enough. What will happen between NATO and Turkey?

“NATO has exploited Turkey for the past 70 years. At that time we were the main bulwark against the Soviet push southward. Now the Cold War is over and Turkey has reconfigured a new geopolitics that does not fit into the Euro-Atlantic vision. And here we have the clash. They want Turkish troops to withdraw from Cyprus, they want Turkey to accept the Seville Map and to impose a Kurdish puppet state in the south with access to the sea. In the last phase they used the Gülenists to break Turkey’s will to pursue a new geopolitical vision. The coup of 15 July 2016 was the final blow, but they failed. The Gülenists were persecuted in Turkey but some escaped to America or Western countries where they found asylum and protection.”

IO: Yours is an important argument. But can Turkey, the new Turkey with its policy of Mavi Vatan, coexist with NATO? Can there still be a Turkish power within the Atlantic Alliance?

“NATO is in crisis at the moment due to what is happening in the Eastern Mediterranean and I don’t believe that the Turkish strategy can coexist for very long with the Atlantic Pact. The Mediterranean is passing from a pax americana to a pax sinica, created and installed by China. It is a very long process but it is clear that the pax americana, which came after the pax britannica, will not accept the inevitable change without a struggle. I hope this change comes about without bloodshed. But it is clear that these two pax systems are changing the Mediterranean or could change it in future.”

Gurdeniz, on this point, seems to have many certainties.

“Ties between NATO and Turkey will no longer be as close as before because the EU and NATO are diverging from Turkish national interests,” he explained. “The Euro-Atlantic system’s attitude to Turkey will have to change. New alliances will have to be forged. We must make new agreements and seek for new allies, for example with Russia, which is under siege, and with which we are making agreements in Syria and Libya. We could also recognize its sovereignty over Abkhazia if Moscow recognizes Northern Cyprus. There is a balance between our respective interests. If the EU and the US want to deprive Turkey of the resources it needs for its future, there will be no scope for a compromise that would force us to lose everything. The Americans and some NATO nations are allying themselves with the PKK and the YPG for an independent Kurdistan that is against Turkish interests. How can the land-based allies of a NATO member state seek to destabilize and fragment another ally?”

L'articolo “What Turkey Wants” proviene da InsideOver.

The Balkans keep being the powder keg of Europe in 2020 as in 1914, and Greece is no exception to this geo-philosophical rule. The neverending rivalry with Turkey, the evergreen appeal exerted by the concept of Orthodox brotherhood, and the troublesome relationship between Athens and its Western allies are all set to further influence the country’s path in unpredictable ways that may reshape the regional landscape and make old hegemonic battles appear once again.

The Anatolian Question

Greece has a millennia-old problem: Anatolia. In fact, since the times of the Trojan war, Greek peoples have been fighting for hegemony over the Aegean sea against the city-states and empires settled in the neighboring Anatolian peninsula, from the Achaemenids to the Ottomans. These two distinct civilizations shared only three elements: they came from Asia, they looked West, they turned out to be the Greek world’s life-threatening rivals.

The identity of modern-day Greece is the result of such millennia-enduring confrontation and not even the fall of the Ottoman empire and the subsequent Western-driven birth of a new nation, based on secular and republican values, proved capable of defeating that force whose name is historic recurrence. Greece and Turkey should be allies, in light of their common belonging to the Atlantic Alliance, but they act as if they weren’t. And it would be anti-historic and erroneous to blame Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan for resuming the Greek-Anatolian rivalry. It wasn’t him the head of state at the time of 1996 Imia crisis. Erdogan’s neo-ottomanism is, more simply, the latest expression of a history that started millennia ago.

Spotlight: Disputed Territories in the Aegean and East Thrace

On May 21, 2020, 35 Turkish troops invaded a Greek-controlled 1.6 hectare strip of land located on the eastern bank of the Evros River. Since then, the Turkish flag has been waving on that small piece of Greek territory, and neither the European Union nor the United States has intervened. Athens’ appeasement line isn’t going to work: Ankara knows no language but gunboat diplomacy. The invasion was designed to oblige the Greeks to reopen the negotiating tables about disputed territories in the Aegean and East Thrace: the sovereignty over dozens of islands and of square kilometres is now questioned and under threat.

Greece is finding itself encircled militarily and even spied upon internally. Documents proving the spy activities carried out by Ankara’s powerful secret services, the Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı (MIT), have recently emerged and have become of public dominion, highlighting the countrywide “monitoring, illegal information gathering and intrusive surveillance” network set up by the Turkish Embassy in Athens in the last years.

Greece’s Western allies had nothing to say in both cases about the small-scale military invasion or the leak, and Athens’ legitimate feelings of discouragement and abandonment may show up their effects in forthcoming future. The not-so-unlikely outcome of the EU’s and the US’ silence — which is counterproductive since it strengthens Erdogan’s self-belief of impunity and invincibility — may be Greece’s realignment and return to its age-old defender: Russia.

Belonging to the West, Flirting With the East

Re-entering Syria means re-establishing the links with the conspicuous Orthodox minority living in the country as well, a population whose faithful respond in large part to the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch, which is in turn part of the Moscow Patriarchate-run Middle Eastern network which protects persecuted Christians and provides the Kremlin with strategic information and tips.

Closer Greek-Russian Military Cooperation

According to the Greek City Times, several months before Athanassiou’s appointment, Athens and Moscow would secretly resume military exchanges of information due to Turkey’s increasingly aggressive behavior in the Eastern Mediterranean. Professor Vaggelis Bachar Moussa, interviewed by the same newspaper, explained why these actions should not be under-evaluated:

“Reopening demonstrates a deepening division among the European countries. The EU still insists on maintaining anti-Syrian pressures and sets up hurdles ahead of the return of the Syrian refugees and still continues its policy of hostility against the legitimate Syrian government. Greece is dissatisfied with EU policy in its confrontation with refugees pouring towards its borders and also the EU’s dissatisfactory economic aid to Athens when the country struggled with the economic crisis. Moreover, the EU is no longer a united body in taking common decisions and its alliance is experiencing disarray.”

Furthermore, Moussa anticipated that a Greek-Syrian Chamber is to be inaugurated in Thessaloniki as part of a wider effort to constitute a maritime bilateral partnership. The aims, here, are clear too: to encircle Turkey by sea with the blessing of Russia.

Then, in June, another very meaningful piece of news came from Athens: the industrial conglomerate Mytilineos inked a ten-year contract with Gazprom Export for the import of Russian gas. Mytilineos started purchasing Russian gas three years ago and since then it signed only short-term deals renewed on annual basis. The decision to end the practice of year-per-year small purchases in favor of a decade-long contract is readable as another sign of Greece’s move toward Russia.

The Evergreen Russophilia Undercurrents of Greece

Overturning Greece’s pro-Western geopolitical positioning is out of the question for Athens, but this doesn’t mean that the country will stand by immovably as its national security and territorial integrity are threatened by Turkey. The silence and inaction of the EU and the NATO over Ankara’s expansionist agenda will consolidate two existing and ever-increasing Greek trends: Euroscepticism and Russophilia.

The former dates back to the outbreak of the debt crisis and seems to grow year after year. According to a 2018 study of the Pew Research Centre, 65% of Greeks expressed negative views of the European Parliament and 62% expressed negative views of the EU as a whole.

Mounting Euroscepticism is counter-balanced by the centuries-old popular attachment to Russia, due to its role in the wars of independence and the two nation’s common faith in Orthodox Christianity. According to a 2017 opinion poll conducted by the Pew Research Centre, Greece was the only country in EU where the majority of the interviewed voiced positive views of Russia, 64%, and of Vladimir Putin, 50%.

These numbers are not going to change the country’s geopolitical alignment, since there is no political force willing to change the status quo, but they do clearly depict what the Greeks think of international relations and how they perceive their surroundings. These numbers tell an interesting story: Greece is one of the birthplaces of Western civilization but it hasn’t forgotten its millennia-old links with the East, and if the West does not find a solution to the Anatolian question, then Greece will — if necessary, with the help of the East.

L'articolo Greece: Endlessly Caught Between the East and the West proviene da InsideOver.

Following over 40 years of deliberations, Greece and Italy have reached an agreement on delimiting an exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The agreement between the two neighboring Mediterranean countries was signed by foreign ministers Nikos Dendias and Luigi Di Maio during the latter’s visit to Athens on June 9.

Details of the EEZ Agreement

An extension of a 1977 bilateral accord, the EEZ agreement broke a decades-long stalemate in the Ionian Sea. Negotiation details were been kept under wraps for several years, mainly due to concerns raised by the Italian side over fishing rights.

The agreement also confirms the right of islands to have maritime zones, a point of particular importance for Greece in its perennial dispute with Turkey, which denies that islands have such rights.

The deal clears the way for both Greece and Italy to explore and exploit their maritime resources. Dendias and Di Maio had previously met in Rome earlier this year to discuss further cooperation between the two countries, in particular the energy sector, given Greece’s and Italy’s partnership on the EastMed gas pipeline project.

Mounting Tension in the Eastern Mediterranean

This development comes at a point of mounting tension in the wider Eastern Mediterranean region. Turkey has signed a controversial memorandum of understanding with the Tripoli-based government in Libya and claims exploration and drilling rights in parts of the Eastern Mediterranean overlapping with the Greek continental shelf. The memorandum was rejected by opposing Libyan General Khalifa Haftar, as well as Egypt, Cyprus, Greece, and Israel.

In an effort to counter Turkey’s actions in the region, Greece will seek to build upon its agreement with Italy by striking similar deals with Albania and Egypt. Athens and Tirana had reached an initial agreement in 2009, but this was overturned later by the Albanian Constitutional Court.

What Comes Next?

The Greek Foreign Minister also plans to visit Egypt soon in order to restart discussions for a maritime agreement between the two countries which would render any understanding between Turkey and Libya void. Bilateral relations between Cairo and Athens are currently at a high point, especially since the establishment of a trilateral cooperation mechanism with the inclusion of Cyprus in 2014, while both countries have different reasons to block Turkey’s attempts to increase its influence in the region.

Despite calls from both sides to resume negotiations for the resolution of bilateral problems, the situation in the Aegean remains fluid. During a press conference held last week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan confirmed press reports that Turkey would explore and develop oil and gas fields in the Mediterranean together with the Libyan government. In response, Greek Defence Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos stated that his country is ready for all possible events, including a military confrontation with Turkey, should provocations from Ankara continue.

With the war of proxies still raging in Libya and without any sustainable political solution in sight, the Eastern Mediterranean EEZ puzzle remains a tough one for all parties involved, especially since the notions of international law and sovereign rights seem to be interpreted differently according to each nation’s own ideas and convictions.

L'articolo Italy and Greece Draw the Line in the Ionian Sea proviene da InsideOver.