Slowly but steadily, Turkey is working to disturb calm waters, this time through fait accompli moves that could carry particularly serious consequences for Greece.

The declaration of two marine parks, along with what may come from the “Blue Homeland” bill, no longer concerns relations between the two countries purely at the diplomatic level, diplomats tell in.gr. It’s now raising questions about what happens on the ground, something that depends on whether, and to what degree, Turkey is willing to defend what it has declared.

Analysts note that for Ankara, the bill expected to reach the Turkish parliament by October at the latest has been years in the making, and represents Turkey’s comprehensive answer to Greece’s Maniatis law, the latter of which stipulates that territorial waters and exclusive economic zones (EEZ) are determined by distance determined by median line measured from baseline coasts including islands.

Turkey’s Marine Parks

Turkey has declared two “national marine parks” in the northeastern Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean, extending beyond Turkish territorial waters.

As Greece’s Foreign Ministry stressed in its statement, to the extent these parks cover international waters, their establishment is illegal, since no state has the right under the Law of the Sea to unilaterally establish marine protected areas outside its national jurisdiction. The ministry added that the parks are also illegal to the extent they extend within the Greek continental shelf, calling the move one that produces no legal effect whatsoever, either regarding international waters or Greece’s rights over its continental shelf.

The ministry further noted that Turkey’s unilateral declaration of “national” marine parks in areas outside its jurisdiction cannot create facts on the ground, nor affect in any way rights arising from international law.

However, diplomats and analysts following developments point out that the same narrative was used with the Turkey-Libya memorandum, yet what ultimately made that agreement unworkable was the Greece-Egypt maritime boundary deal.

The Risk of a Unilateral Turkish EEZ Declaration

According to international law professor Petros Liakouras, speaking on ERT radio, the choice of these marine parks isn’t random either, since they were picked to mark the start and end points of the maritime border with Turkey, from the northern Aegean to the eastern Mediterranean.

Liakouras points to Turkey’s stated intention to negotiate a maritime boundary with Egypt, noting that until then, Turkey wants to close off this area for environmental reasons and fold it into an Exclusive Economic Zone it would declare unilaterally under the planned Blue Homeland law. In other words, these parks could be a precursor to a broader EEZ resulting from Turkey’s Blue Homeland bill, which may grant the Turkish president the authority to unilaterally delineate maritime zones.

He adds that Turkey is following a “creeping jurisdiction” strategy, meaning environmental protection zones could later be converted into strategic zones if folded into the broader package of maritime sovereign rights envisioned by the bill.

Analysts stress that the danger of a Turkish EEZ declaration lies in it becoming a fait accompli working against Greek claims, shrinking an area Greece can currently claim the right to delineate, with Ankara instead calling it its own.

Wider Fallout from the Marine Parks Declaration

The marine parks move is expected to have wide-reaching effects, since — regardless of Ankara’s claims — it also impacts shipping by isolating the area. Free fishing around the islands affected by the parks, carried out by Greek fishermen, would also be significantly affected. The consequences extend to scientific research and cable-laying as well.

According to Liakouras, Ankara is using this approach to encircle and isolate the islands in a way that makes them vulnerable, feeding into a broader narrative around demilitarizing the islands, with the ultimate goal of giving Turkey a say over everything happening in the Aegean, while also controlling developments in the Eastern Mediterranean.

A Visible Risk of Escalation

Diplomats also flag the risk that Ankara could move to a unilateral EEZ declaration, warning that this would upgrade Turkish claims and raise the visible possibility that Turkey might want to defend the area militarily as well, increasing the chances of tension or a hot incident.

Petros Liakouras argues that Greece has the right to demand Turkey reverse the move, not just for its own interests but for the broader international public interest, namely protecting the high seas and all the freedoms that come with them. He stresses that the time has come for Athens to say “enough.”

It’s worth noting that Ankara’s moves follow a specific pattern, arriving in small steps each time, none of which can be dismissed as negligible, and are presented as a response to Greek moves.

Four Fronts

Athens now has to deal with Ankara on four fronts: the Blue Homeland bill, the marine parks, cable-laying, and Turkey’s broadly accepted international upgrading.

Analysts describe reports that Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is receiving proposals to extend Greek territorial waters to 12 nautical miles strictly south of Crete as largely symbolic, since it’s a move that doesn’t concern or affect Turkey.

They note that supporters of Mitsotakis’s approach want to ensure there’s no war or hot incident with Turkey, while somehow signaling that Greece isn’t backing down and is putting up resistance. But as they put it, this amounts to managing the optics of developments rather than actually addressing them.

Is Returning to Exploratory Talks the Answer?

Diplomats say the government should bring back exploratory talks and raise the issue at the EU level, seeking European sanctions. They note that the political dialogue that replaced exploratory contacts allowed the issue of maritime zones to go undiscussed, sidelined, with political dialogue instead focusing on matters that couldn’t be downplayed, like migration, while avoiding the more pressing issue.

In this context, they believe valuable time has been wasted since 2023, with the period of “calm waters” not used for real initiatives and substantive dialogue that could have made it harder for Ankara to eventually provoke an incident.

Along the same lines, they argue Athens should have run a serious diplomatic campaign toward Libya, Egypt, and Turkey aimed at maritime boundary delineation, something that also didn’t happen. As a result, the Athens Declaration brought a reduction in violations and overflights and benefits on migration, but the government failed to build on it to bring Turkey to the table for substantive talks, something Ankara blames on Athens’s reluctance.

They stress once again that Athens’s moves need to be calm and decisive, in a way that sends a strong response to Ankara while avoiding empty symbolic gestures aimed purely at scoring political points.