Ankara: Long-running tensions between Turkey and Greece have escalated again after Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis addressed the US Congress last month.
As the two countries simultaneously face an economic slowdown with severe inflation, and as they near their election terms in 2023, experts say tensions between them are increasingly being exploited for domestic purposes. Is.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wrote several tweets in Greek, directly threatening Greeks to be prudent with their approach to the Aegean Sea, otherwise “they will regret it”.
Erdogan recently said Mitsotakis “no longer exists” for him as he accused him of trying to block the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey. He also warned: “Don’t try to dance with the turkey. You’ll get tired and stuck in the street.”
In return, the Greek government called for national unity toward an “unexpected” neighbour, while former prime minister Alexis Tsipras responded in Turkey to Erdogan, saying: “Greece will defend its sovereignty against all threats. So let’s provocation.” and return to negotiations based on international law. Extremist nationalism is not the answer to the economic crisis we are facing.”
Mitsotakis also warned against Turkey’s “aggression” and said he would “not engage in a game of personal humiliation.”
For Sonner Cagapte, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute, this recent tension is unprecedented.
“Erdogan issues a warning to Greece over disputes over the Aegean Sea, threatening a repeat of the Asia Minor catastrophe of 1922 in which Greece was ruthlessly defeated by Turkey. This is the most severe escalation of tensions between Ankara and Athens in recent memory,” he said.
After urging for common sense in the Turkey-Greece conflict in recent weeks and throwing his weight behind Athens, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited the Greek port city of Thessaloniki on Friday as part of a Southeast European cooperation process. visited.
“The latest tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean between Turkey and Greece are part of an interconnected and long-standing crises, each determined by conflicting views defined as national interests and national sovereignty,” said Madalina Sisu- Vikari, an energy and geopolitical expert at the Eurasian Energy Chamber, told Arab News.
Ankara emphasizes the need to demilitarize Turkey’s neighboring Greek islands in the Aegean Sea on the basis of international agreements because it sees the presence of Greek military forces there as a threat to its domestic security.
Ankara is also against NATO, EU or third party involvement in pending maritime issues in the Aegean Sea, such as overlapping claims on continental shelves, maritime borders, illegal migration and Cyprus, as it seeks to resolve them bilaterally.
Selim Koru, an analyst at Ankara-based think-tank TEPAV, says a technological solution through multilateral organizations such as the European Union and NATO can slow the crisis but not stop it.
“This crisis is an expression of a deeper political process that has been unfolding for decades. It has its own logic and it will not stop until it does its job,” he told Arab News.
As for Ankara, the islands in the Aegean Sea were given to Greece under the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 and the Treaty of Paris in 1947, which guarantee the islands’ unarmed status.
But Greece considers it its sovereign right to maintain its army to defend itself against any hostile actions by Turkish forces on the same coast.
The two countries also informed the United Nations of their position on the islands, with some historians such as Ryan Gingeras stating that “war in the Aegean is not only possible, but perhaps, at some point, probable.”
According to Sisu-Vicari, these maritime crises are turning into several geopolitical conflicts and power struggles between Ankara and Athens, and they are regularly revived or exacerbated by significant developments, both domestic and international.
“Domestic factors such as economic difficulties and next year’s elections, combined with Turkey’s geopolitical role and leverage in the context of the Ukraine war, were among the major triggers of Ankara’s latest rhetoric,” she said.
However, in addition to domestic factors, Sisu-Vicari believes that reducing US geopolitical clout in the eastern Mediterranean – now exacerbated by the war in Ukraine – influenced the Turkish–Greek crisis. has done.
“On the one hand, the outlook for EU membership is frozen for Turkey, and the US has reduced its geopolitical presence in the eastern Mediterranean, and on the other, the interests of other European actors, primarily the war in Ukraine. are absorbed by,” she said. ,
In October 2020, Greece and Turkey decided to establish a military disengagement mechanism after a series of talks in Brussels facilitated by NATO. The mechanism aims to reduce the risk of “accidents” and “incidents” in the eastern Mediterranean by creating a hotline between the two countries.
But the exploratory talks that resumed last year made little progress. Turkey has recently canceled a high-level Strategic Council meeting with Greece.
Although this may help ease some of the tensions, Sisu-Vicari thinks it is difficult to resolve these long-standing crises without a “grand bargain” in the eastern Mediterranean, which includes a commitment to territory and political concessions. Visionary planning should be included. – probably painful – agreed mainly by the actors concerned, Turkey and Greece.
“In the absence of such a bargain, domestic or geopolitical factors will continue to revive and escalate tensions,” she said.
The US State Department urged both allies to “avoid rhetoric that could escalate tensions.”
“Greece and Turkey are both strong US partners and major NATO allies and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries must be respected and protected,” it said in a statement.
Turkey’s biggest military exercise, EFES-2022, which began on May 20, concluded on June 10 with the participation of more than 10,000 military personnel from 37 countries including the US, UK, France, Qatar and Pakistan – a move that has been time-tested. But considered and important amid rising regional tensions.