Escalating tensions between Greece and Turkey: arms buildup and territorial disputes

It's an ongoing back and forth: Greece complains about Turkish airspace violations, about what it sees as illegal Turkish marine national parks, and about Turkish troop deployments to the coast.

On the other hand, there is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who calls on Greece to end the "militarization" of its islands. And his Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who therefore speaks of a security threat to Turkey.

Greece is arming

Meri Bossi is Emeritus Professor of International Security at the University of Piraeus. She warns of a new era: "We are seeing increasing escalation and threatening rhetoric from Turkey and Greece. All of this, and of course the uncertain regional and international environment, contributes to the fact that these tensions could perhaps reach a more extreme point."

The Greek government is now relying on deterrence. The principle: If you want peace, you better prepare for war. At the end of August, Greece signed a billion-dollar arms contract with Israel. Name: Shield of Achilles. Greece will receive a comprehensive air defense system - and at the same time invest in its own arms industry.

Destabilized region

From the perspective of Greek analyst and journalist John Psaropoulos, it's all about self-defense: "From the Greek perspective, the destabilization in the region around Ukraine and now also in the Gulf and the Red Sea is bad news for containing this conflict with Turkey." These conflicts created “an atmosphere of lawlessness in which war was normalized.”

The journalist Psaropoulos complains that the conflict with Turkey receives little attention in Europe and Germany. But the longer you leave conflicts unresolved, the greater the likelihood of serious problems in the long term. "Greece sees Turkey as a potential Russia. The threat perception that Europe now has from Russia is what Greece has had about Turkey for a long time," he says.

Researcher: "There is no agreement on what is actually controversial"

This perception has a long history, dating back to the times of the Ottoman Empire. In recent decades, especially since the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, Greece and Turkey have repeatedly clashed over various issues in the Aegean.

Ronald Meinardus did his doctorate on the subject and has lived in Greece for a long time. He now works as a research assistant for the Athens think tank ELIAMEP. "People don't agree on what is actually controversial, and they don't agree on how to resolve these issues," he says. The conflict occurs immediately.

Türkiye wants to shake up the status quo

For example, the Greek government has clarified the question of whether it has the right to extend the territorial waters around the Aegean islands to twelve nautical miles. After all, this is what the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea allows.

But the Turkish parliament decided in 1995 that if Greece actually implemented this, it would be seen as a reason for war. The Turkish fear: Because of the many Greek islands, the international waters in the Aegean could shrink significantly and Turkish shipping traffic would be drastically restricted.

But there are many more controversial issues: Turkey, for example, speaks of certain "gray areas" in which the sovereignty of certain islands and uninhabited rocks has not been clarified - from the Greek perspective, their status is very well regulated.

Observer Meinardus sees Turkey's deliberate strategy of increasing the number of controversial topics: "The smaller the dispute basket is, the lower the chance that you will get something out of it. But the more you throw in, the greater the chance that you will be able to take something away," is how he describes the Turkish strategy.

The status quo is actually in the interests of Greece. “And Turkey wants to revise this status quo. And Turkey is a revisionist power,” said Meinardus.

Turkish political scientist sees “family conflict”

Greek observers, for example, point to the Turkish doctrine of the "Blue Homeland", which will soon be discussed in parliament. It envisages significantly expanding the Turkish zones of influence in the Mediterranean - critics speak of neo-Ottoman expansion plans.

However, political scientist Hüseyin Bağcı from Ankara reassures: "There could be no military conflict between Turkey and Greece because both sides are members of NATO and they cannot do that. This is a family conflict and it should be resolved within NATO, but also within the European Union."

Domestic political motives?

The fact that Turkey has now sent a good 2,000 soldiers to the coastal region south of Izmir is a sign that Turkey is ready to fight. But President Erdoğan is not interested in war anyway, says Bagci.

Experts agree that a lot of this is motivated by domestic politics. There are elections in Greece in the spring - and Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis doesn't want to appear weak. One thing is certain: the time of “calm waters,” as the phase of relaxation has been called since Erdoğan visited Athens in 2023, is over.