Turkey has said that any attempt by Greece to expand its maritime border would be an “act of war” as it prepares for
new military drills north of Cyprus this week.
Leaders of Nato, of which both countries are member states, and the European Union are trying to calm tensions in the eastern Mediterranean. But Turkey has continued to issue threats over Greece’s insistence that its islands allow it to claim rights over much of the Aegean. The Turkish Ministry of Defence has posted a video on its website of what it said was a
confrontation between its F-16 fighters and Greek warplanes on Thursday, with the Turkish jet apparently “locking on” to its Greek rival.
Greece said the Turkish planes had entered its airspace as its F-16s were accompanying an American B-52 bomber, one of six that were on a highly symbolic 24-hour flight over the territories of all 30 Nato members in an appeal for unity.
The two nations have been locked in a dispute for months about maritime control and drilling rights in the eastern Mediterranean. Last week Greece announced that it was extending its maritime border to the west from six to twelve nautical miles.
A similar shift in the Aegean, where several Greek islands lie within 12 miles of the Turkish coast, would be regarded there as a highly hostile act. Some Turkish politicians already argue that the islands, on which tens of thousands of Greek citizens live, should more naturally fall under Ankara’s control.
“If the Greek attempt to expand its territorial waters isn’t a casus belli, then what is?” Fuat Oktay, the Turkish vice-president, told the state news agency. He added that Turkey would “protect its rights on every cubic metre in the eastern Mediterranean waters, no matter what.”
Turkey has long claimed greater rights to maritime control than those set out by existing international treaties, and in particular those asserted by the EU. It says the Greek claim of jurisdiction around its myriad Aegean islands and the international non-recognition of Turkish Northern Cyprus restricts it to what President Erdogan has called “fishing off the beach with a rod”.
It has sent an oil exploration vessel to the southwest coast of Cyprus and signed a bilateral agreement carving up notional control of the eastern Mediterranean with the government of western Libya, which it backs in a civil war against the east.
Footage from the Turkish jet appeared to show it targeting the Greek fighter
The dispute has sucked in countries across Europe and the Middle East. Both France and Egypt, which back the eastern side in Libya, have sprung to Greece’s defence; Egypt signing a maritime control treaty with Athens in retaliation for Turkey’s deal with Tripoli.
The United Arab Emirates, hostile to Mr Erdogan’s brand of Islamist politics, sent F-16s to train with Greece last week.
The EU held a two-day summit on the crisis, ending on Friday. Josep Borrell, its foreign affairs chief, issued a statement calling for dialogue but also threatening to impose sanctions if Ankara did not de-escalate — which further enraged Turkey. “It is insincere for the EU to call for dialogue on the one hand and make different plans on the other,” Mr Oktay said.
Mr Erdogan, accused by the Greeks of harbouring “neo-Ottoman” ambitions, referred to the period after the First World War when France, along with Britain, attempted to reduce the size of the rump Turkish state. That led to a four-year, bitter war, known to Turkey as the War of Independence, and the expulsion of nearly all Turkey’s Greek population from the mainland.
In a tub-thumping speech on Victory Day marking the war’s 98th anniversary, Mr Erdogan said: “It is absolutely not a coincidence that those who seek to exclude us from the eastern Mediterranean are the same invaders as the ones who attempted to invade our homeland a century ago.”
Shifting sands of allegiance
So many nations are manoeuvring in the eastern Mediterranean that it seems like a re-run of the 16th century, when Spaniards, Venetians, Barbary pirates and the Ottoman empire grappled for dominance.
The 21st-century version has pitted Turkish and American warships training together on one side, and on the other jets from Greece, Cyprus, Italy and France. Last week there was a new entrant: the UAE, 2,000 miles away on the shores of the Gulf, sent F-16 fighters to show its support for the Greeks.
Turkey has become a unifying force for opponents on all sides: to the west in Greece, to the south in Egypt, and to the southeast, in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which dislike its support for political Islam.
The division across the Middle East was already stark. The two Gulf states opposed the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which Turkey and Qatar backed, and support President Sisi. In Syria Turkey continues to back rebels in the northwest, while the UAE has reopened an embassy in Damascus. In Libya they back opposite sides.
None of these conflicts affects Greece much; the alliance seems to exist entirely because of their shared opposition to President Erdogan’s ambitions.
Some EU states, such as France, back Greece; others call for reconciliation with Turkey. Which side is in the right is less important now than which side is building the stronger alliance. The UAE’s decision to recognise Israel, although made for other reasons, establishes a network of anti-Turkey, anti-Islamist nations stretching from France, through Greece, to Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.
In the 16th century Turkey emerged the dominant power. It now looks rather surrounded.