Could Greece, Turkey tensions spill into open conflict?

Greece and Turkey may come to blows forward of elections in each nations subsequent 12 months, say specialists on each side.

Relations between Greece and Turkey have remained tense and so they may come to blows forward of elections [File: Sakis Mitrolidis/AFP]

Greek officers say relations with Turkey are so tense earlier than elections in each nations subsequent June that a navy incident is feasible within the Aegean or Japanese Mediterranean that would set off a wider battle.

The Greek suspicion is that Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan would search to create a nationwide safety disaster that will increase his reputation, on the wane after 20 years in energy.

In August, Erdogan urged he would possibly order a touchdown on Greek islands: “We are able to come immediately one evening … if you happen to Greeks go too far, then the value will likely be heavy.”

“Till 2019, 2020, 2021, I supported that there was no likelihood of warfare. I can not say that,” retired Greek Admiral Alexandros Diakopoulos advised Al Jazeera.

“Turkey’s rhetoric is constructing in direction of an assault,” stated Diakopoulos, who's a former nationwide safety adviser to Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

Turkey’s high diplomat in Athens agrees there may be rigidity, however says it's being managed.

“Because the embassy, we now have an inexpensive dialogue with our Greek colleagues – don’t consider what you learn within the papers!” Turkish Ambassador Burak Ozugergin advised Al Jazeera.

“We’re all attempting for accidents to not occur. Issues usually are not as dangerous because the summer season of 2020, however we must be very vigilant as a result of issues can get very nasty in a short time.”

‘Parallel crises’

Angelos Syrigos, a professor of worldwide regulation at Panteion College and deputy minister of training and spiritual affairs, agrees.

“We’re at Defcon One proper now,” he advised Al Jazeera, referring to the severest defence readiness situation.

“I believe Turkey will try many parallel crises,” says Syrigos, envisioning a refugee disaster, adopted by the presence of an oil and fuel survey ship and a drillship on what Greece considers its maritime jurisdiction.

Relations have remained tense because the two NATO allies almost got here to blows two years in the past. The Greek and Turkish navies shadowed one another within the Aegean and the Japanese Mediterranean for a complete summer season after Turkey despatched a survey ship to search for undersea oil and fuel in waters Greece claims as its jurisdiction beneath worldwide regulation.

Turkey has stated it is not going to be deterred from exploration actions on this space, and seeks to observe its seismic imaging surveys with exploratory drilling.

“ Turkey’s technique in 2019-21, they have been attempting to get us to make use of pressure first. Now Turkey realises that that received’t occur … so they're a Turkish first use of pressure that might be justified by portraying Greece as occupying the east Aegean islands,” says Diakopoulos.

Turkey began disputing uninhabited Greek islets in 1996, however final 12 months, it started to overtly dispute Greek sovereignty over its inhabited east Aegean islands.

In June, Erdogan demanded Greece cease arming Aegean Sea islands which have non-military standing and abide by worldwide agreements. In August, he urged he would possibly order a touchdown.

“The islands you occupy don't bind us, we are going to do what is critical when the time comes,” Erdogan advised a crowd in Turkey’s Kutahya metropolis final August.

Nationalist Motion Social gathering chief Devlet Bahceli, Erdogan’s junior coalition companion, posed subsequent to a map displaying all of Greece’s east Aegean islands, together with the Dodecanese and Crete, as Turkish territory.

“The islands, on which [Greece] sits unlawfully and unfairly, are our proper,” Bahceli stated final month. “[The Greeks] shouldn't take a look at our persistence. In the event that they wish to be pushed to the ocean as soon as once more, allow them to inform us and we are going to throw all of them, God prepared.”

The 1919-22 warfare

Bahceli was referring to the Greek-Turkish warfare of 1919-22, through which Turkish armies defeated a Greek try to assert western Anatolia.

The Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 awarded Greece the islands of the east Aegean and positioned limits on navy infrastructure there.

Turkey says Greece has surpassed these limits, and should due to this fact cede the islands.

The USA and the European Union say Greece’s sovereignty over the islands is unquestionable.

The bilateral relationship took a nose-dive after Mitsotakis advised a joint session of the US Congress final Could that Turkey would use the upgraded F-16 fighter jets it has requested to violate Greek airspace. Greece has logged greater than 7,000 violations this 12 months.

“The very last thing that NATO wants at a time when our focus is on serving to Ukraine defeat Russia’s aggression, is one other supply of instability on NATO’s Southeastern flank. And I ask you are taking this under consideration whenever you make defence procurement choices regarding the Japanese Mediterranean,” Mitsotakis stated, prompting Erdogan to say he would by no means meet with Mitsotakis once more.

Territorial water

The Greek and Turkish defence ministers met for 40 minutes on the sidelines of a NATO summit on October 13, and are stated to have an excellent working relationship.

However these channels are designed to defuse rigidity, to not resolve the deep variations that divide Greece and Turkey.

There are two essential points. The primary is territorial water.

Beneath the UN’s Regulation of the Sea (UNCLOS), “each state has the proper to determine the breadth of its territorial sea as much as a restrict not exceeding 12 nautical miles [22km], measured from baselines decided in accordance with this Conference”.

This implies Greece may declare direct sovereignty over 72 % of the Aegean.

Turkey doesn't argue with the rights of islands to territorial waters, however objects to the 12 nautical mile (22km) distance, and has threatened Greece with navy motion ought to it train its rights beneath the UNCLOS.

Each Greece and Turkey presently declare 6 nautical miles (11km) of territorial water within the Aegean, however 12 nautical miles (22km) off their different shores.

Undersea hydrocarbons

A second subject considerations sovereign rights to take advantage of undersea hydrocarbons past territorial waters – an space referred to as an unique financial zone (EEZ).

UNCLOS guidelines award Greece 500,000sq km (193,000sq miles) of EEZ within the Aegean and Japanese Mediterranean.

Turkey just isn't a signatory to UNCLOS and disagrees with its provision of a continental shelf and an EEZ for islands. In 2019, Turkey signed a maritime settlement with Libya that cuts a hall throughout it.

The EU denounced that settlement as “unlawful”, however earlier this month Turkey signed an “exploration and drilling” settlement with the Authorities of Nationwide Unity in Tripoli inside the hall, signalling that it's going to ship survey ships there.

Greece has urged arbitration of the EEZ dispute on the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice in The Hague, however refuses to debate its territorial water rights beneath the specter of warfare.

“Within the Aegean, if the territorial water limits are prolonged by Greece, then we actually don’t have a lot excessive seas left to speak about – which makes going to courtroom nearly meaningless. Turkey is able to go to courtroom, however with all related points,” Ozugergin advised Al Jazeera.

“I don’t assume we will persuade one another of our place bilaterally,” he stated. “We should always go to courtroom.”

Hazard to Greece

Konstantinos Filis, worldwide relations professor on the American School of Greece, believed there was a hazard that Greece can be backed into negotiating its sovereign waters away, and will act to forestall that.

“Greece wants a method for the extension of its territorial waters to 12 nautical miles,” stated Filis. “It must be a staggered technique, enabling Greece to implement the Regulation of the Sea as a substitute of merely invoking it.”

He urged extending territorial waters off Crete first, then off the mainland. “As a last sphere in your diplomatic toolbox, you retain the east Aegean,” he says.

Greece claimed 12 nautical miles of territorial water off its Ionian coast on August 26, 2020, on the top of its final disaster with Turkey.

On the time, International Minister Nikos Dendias stated territorial waters off Crete can be the subsequent to be prolonged.

One other disaster might be what Greece is ready for to make that transfer.

“The nearer a disaster is, the nearer the begin to a dialogue is as properly, as a result of that is how Turkey does enterprise,” stated Filis.