Athens is on alert for the possibility of a hot episode from Turkey
He has been on a “red alert” for the last few days Maximos Palace and the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense, as Athens carefully studied Ankara’s moves and reactions to the Greek-French supply agreement for Belharra frigates and Gowind corvettes, following the Rafale fighter jets, but also the signing with France of third country ”(ie obviously Turkey) attacks the territory of one of the two countries (equally obviously, Greece).
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The initial reactions of the Erdogan regime were the usual maximalist statements, which were now treated with indifference by the West, because they were so frequent and so outspoken against international law, that they are reasonably perceived as statements made more for internal consumption and less to really portray Greece.
However, a number of factors have “turned on the red lights on the alarm” in Athens, which do not relate at all to provocative statements by Turkish officials but in shaping conditions so that a hot episode in the Aegean to cost less in Ankara than the confidence and stabilization of the situation that has developed in recent months in Greek-Turkish.
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These factors are:
1 The Greek military agreement – France refers to the military assistance of the second largest country in Europe (which by the way is a nuclear power and a permanent member of the UN Security Council) to Greece, if there was an offer of Greek territory (of course) from Turkey.
At a time when politicians in Greece have publicly stated whether the Agreement has taken into account the points in which Greece has, according to International Law – sovereign rights, or even the Athens FIR, services that study Turkey and are located in most of the through the Greek Government, notes that a possible exercise of Greece’s right to extend territorial waters from 6 (which is today) to 12 nautical miles (which is the loss limit of the possibility of extension), makes it “territory” without question of the new terms that would like Athens, as it did with our maritime borders to the West and to the South.
“If we expand our limits, e.g. “At 9 or 10 nautical miles, the implementation of the casus belli by Turkey will immediately activate the Greek-French agreement on mutual military assistance”, observes a central ministry official with extensive experience in Greek-Turkish. the issue is not the “reading” of the agreement based on the current situation, but based on what will be formed when Greece decides to do to the East, what it did to the West and to the South. This is what Turkey “read” when it spoke in its announcement of “anti-Turkish agreements”. So, a hot episode before the possible expansion of the territorial waters of Greece to the East, will create new data in the Aegean…
2 The report of the former Minister of Defense Panos Kammenos in his TV interview about the intention of Ankara to create a hot episode with Greece, did not come from primary information but from the knowledge of those who revealed in his discussions his recent visit to Athens, the mayor of Istanbul and the main opponents of Erdogan in the next presidential elections of Turkey, Ekrem Imamoglu.
The Turkish politician expressed the view that the current President of Turkey, who is constantly declining in popularity and has little chance of being re-elected against Imamoglu himself or the mayor of Ankara, Mansour Yavas, only in a great upheaval can he hope for his political resurrection. And what could be this “big upset”, if not a hot episode in the Aegean? However, its rapprochement with Russia makes it very difficult to “invest in growth” in the region of Syria (where Moscow and Ankara have different readings). Nor can the escalation of the Kurdish problem give him a political glamor that will then be taken over by his communicators to translate into an increase in his personal influence.
Therefore, one possibility is the hardening of the Cyprus problem (but where Erdogan has already taken a completely extreme stance, the two-state solution, from which only a “compromise” in one form of confederation can go, not in more extreme situations) or a heated episode in the Aegean.
3 The Putin-Erdogan talks which have been reheated in recent days on the initiative of the Turkish president, include both the modernization of the nuclear power plant in Akuyu and, possibly, the construction of additional similar units on Turkish soil. It is obvious, say those who are aware of what is happening in the neighbor, that Turkey is seeking to set up nuclear power plants, in order – among other things – to acquire know-how and access to material that can be used to build nuclear weapons. This is something that Athens must behave on the data on which its plans will be based.
All this brings Greece and Turkey again face to face, in a situation reminiscent of the classic “game theory”. It will be Greece that will be the first to expand its territorial waters beyond 6 n.m. which is today, making the Greek territory bigger and disgusting the casus belli with the military assistance of France, or it would be Turkey that would “gray” a region in the Aegean for the first time, causing a hot episode that will also increase Erdogan’s popularity. increase – so the Turkish President will go to early elections – but also Turkey’s strategy to the west of the border that it will serve? Scholars and policy rapporteurs in both countries have a lot of work to do from now on.
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