Constant reinvention has been a defining characteristic of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s political career. He has never hesitated to shift positions, or even to swap allies for adversaries, making abrupt turns in his dealings with the United States, for instance, and at home, where he has by turns demonized and courted the Kurds.
So when he struck a milder tone toward Greece from the podium of the U.N. General Assembly, at a moment when tensions between the two countries have flared again, few in Athens were surprised.
Only days before he traveled to New York, Erdogan had once again threatened Greece, demanding that it demilitarize its Aegean islands. He also reminded Greeks how close the small island of Kastellorizo lies to Turkey. “If we simply raise our voices from Kas, they will hear us in Greece,” he said, referring to the Turkish town across the water from the island.
Yet before the dozens of world leaders who listened to his speech, the Turkish president stuck to his well-worn references to “interconnected problems in the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean.” The next day, he called Greece “not an enemy, but a neighbor and an allied country” within NATO.
Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis publicly called the 180-degree turn, which unfolded within a few hours, “welcome.” It is, by no means, however, a sign that tensions between Athens and Ankara are easing.
‘We Don’t Expect Changes’
At Maximos Mansion, the prime minister’s office, and among the Foreign Ministry’s political leadership, the prevailing view is that Erdogan’s rhetorical choices were a matter of circumstance: “He picked an opponent at the United Nations, and it wasn’t Greece, it was Israel.” His language about “genocide” against Palestinians and “Israeli concentration camps in Gaza” did indeed cast Erdogan as the most hardline player in the Middle East, leaving no room for another confrontation with Athens.
The question on both sides of the Aegean is whether the constructive tone the Turkish president adopted in New York will soon translate into restraint on the ground. Two major tests for Greece- Turkey relations are approaching: the resumption of surveys for laying the electricity interconnector cable (GSI) between Greece and Cyprus, and the imminent – according to reports- submission of a bill on “Blue Homeland,” the Turkish doctrine that claims extensive maritime areas in the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean.
A diplomatic source in Athens all but ruled out any positive developments. “We cannot say that Erdogan’s stance at the U.N. signals a change on the major issues,” the source said. “Perhaps it is some form of rhetorical adjustment, but by no means a change in substance.” For now, the mood resembles the calm before the storm.
Turkey, in this climate, is certain to react strongly once the long-awaited NAVTEX notices are issued. These maritime navigation warnings are required for the French vessel to sail to the eastern Mediterranean. For Athens, and for the French, who have largely taken the lead in talks with Ankara, the priority now is to keep the tension confined to diplomacy and prevent it from spilling over at sea.
Efforts so far to persuade Turkey to accept nothing more than a written notification from the French company on the ship’s route and operations have gone nowhere. In Ankara’s view, what is at stake in the project is not merely showing the flag and projecting power, but securing strategic space at a critical crossroads in the eastern Mediterranean. That reading was confirmed just last Thursday, when Turkey’s Defense Ministry repeated that Ankara would not allow any unauthorized activity on the “Turkish continental shelf.”
The Rubio Visit
Athens has spent recent weeks stressing both the French involvement and the fact that the interconnector has European Union funding and is meant to speed up Europe’s shift away from Russian energy. The aim is to confront Ankara with its responsibilities toward the EU. But as long as Turkey maintains a series of defense agreements with Europe’s major powers, along with a dynamic military industry, imposing countermeasures will only grow harder.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meanwhile, is scheduled to arrive in Athens this week, and amid these tensions his visit will give Greece another opportunity to present itself as a pillar of stability in the wider region. Rubio knows the eastern Mediterranean well and has explicitly backed any energy project that helps move Europe away from Moscow.
He will deliver a message of peace, security and stability for a strategic crossroads between East and West, and in particular between two essential NATO allies. The sixth round of the U.S.-Greece Strategic Dialogue will seal the close cooperation between the two countries in the critical areas of defense and arms procurement, capped by Greece’s purchase of F-35 fighter jets. Washington places particular value on its use of U.S. facilities on Greek soil, especially with two wars still being fought in Ukraine and the Middle East. Athens, for its part, also expects new proposals for deepening the strategic relationship, particularly in energy.
Ankara is already watching Rubio’s visit closely. Many analysts also link Erdogan’s restrained posture toward Greece in New York to his inability to turn his personal rapport with President Donald Trump into tangible gains. Turkey has been unable to persuade the White House to let it return to the F-35 program, and with his confrontation with Israel ongoing, the Turkish president does not want Trump to see him as the chief troublemaker in the eastern Mediterranean.
Bleak Scenarios
On the upcoming GSI surveys, it is telling that the best-case scenario under consideration at the Foreign Ministry is that they will go ahead, but with the French ship under constant Turkish surveillance and harassed over the radio. Even that hope has little chance of materializing, and a repeat of the episode off the island of Kasos, when Turkish navy units blocked the survey work, looks like the most likely outcome.
If that happens, Athens will deploy forces of its own in response, as Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Foreign minister Gerapetritis have repeatedly pledged. As the weeks go by, however, more than a few people close to the government doubt not only when but whether the long-troubled project will ever be completed, despite the French investor Meridiam having a majority stake. Compounding the problem is the ambivalence of Nicosia, which is still awaiting a new cost-benefit study and has voiced reservations about the project’s “geopolitical risk.”
Such an outcome would be deeply damaging for the Greek government, which will also have to contend in the near future with the fallout from Turkey enshrining the provisions of “Blue Homeland” in domestic law. Approval of Ankara’s revisionist positions by the Turkish Grand National Assembly, which reconvened on Oct. 1, may carry no legal weight internationally. Even so, the dispute between Greece and Turkey over maritime zones and other provisions, such as marine parks, is certain to enter a new phase, because Ankara will then be bound by law to defend what it regards as its rights in the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean.
