Politica 89.8
Greece’s alert for Turkish provocations and the meeting of Mitsotakis with Erdogan
By Alexia Tasouli
It seems contradictory, but it is indicative of the complexity of Greek-Turkish relations.
On the one hand, Athens is on alert for the possibility of a reaction from Ankara in the sea, following the approval of the maritime spatial planning, and on the other hand, the meeting between the prime minister and the president of Turkey for the supreme cooperation council is scheduled.
The talks on confidence-building measures went well last Monday, but that doesn’t mean anything, as “low-level” issues are always discussed at these extended meetings, while it was agreed to hold a Greek business mission to Istanbul in early May.
Furthermore, the Gerapetritis-Fidan channel is constantly open and their telephone contacts are regular, even if they are not always announced.
On May 14th, in Antalya, there will be another meeting between the two foreign ministers on the sidelines of the NATO summit, although the main topic on the North Atlantic alliance’s agenda will regard the developments in Ukraine.
But this does not mean that there is reassurance that everything is going well in bilateral relations. A critical parameter in how things will develop, has to do with the restart of work on laying the Crete-Cyprus electric cable and the implementation of pllaning the marine parks.
Its hasn’t been long time ago since there was an attempt by Turkey to intimidate the French ship company and the known unfounded allegations, practically freezing the investigations since last July due to the incident with the appearance of warships near Kasos and Karpathos.
The Italian ship was in the area of Agios Nikolaos, in Crete, for several days, again provoking Turkish mobilization, as a Turkish corvette attempted to intervene in the measurements for the laying of the cable.
Since then, the two Italian research ships, which have undertaken the operational planning, have not received orders to set off again and move eastward, in order to complete the sounding surveys and move the process to the next phase for laying the cable.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs still avoids talking about a specific timetable and still today and emphasizes on the technical complexity even for the issuance of partial navtex for a project that includes marine research, in the first phase, of at least 6 months.
Furthermor the Israeli Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, Eli Cohen, when he came to Athens, stated that “we will do everything possible to promote electrical interconnection.”
Turkey has also announced that it has completed its own maritime spatial planning, which reflects all its claims in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean, within the framework of the “Blue Homeland”, and is expected to submit it to the competent UN agencies.
At the same time, the neighboring country is planning two major exercises in May, with the Ministry of Defence is constantly on alert due to possible tensions both in the air and at sea. And of course, the information that the state-owned Turkish company TRAO has not gone unnoticed by the diplomatic radar regarding the plans activities in Libya, where, however, the plots marked out by the Libyan Ministry of Energy do not violate the potential Greek EEZ, but also in the occupied territories in Cyprus where it has illegally granted illegal plots of land for exploration even within the demarcated EEZ of the Republic of the island.
All of this, clearly shows that tension and the creation of a heated episode are always possible, and therefore there is no rush either for the restart on the cable drilling or for Kyriakos Mitsotakis‘ visit to Ankara.
