Athens, Greece — Days after Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s re-election to the Turkish presidency, Greeks appear serene.
The essential concern for the Greeks has actually not been whether Erdogan or his challenger, Republican People’s Party leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, would win, however whether either would enhance traditionally bad relations.
“It’s not a matter of people. Turkish diplomacy is set,” stated Konstantinos Filis, director of the Institute of Global Affairs at the American College of Greece.
“But due to the fact that Erdogan runs an autocratic system, if he chooses something, he can implement it, even if it’s a magnificent about-turn,” he informed Al Jazeera.
“Kilicdaroglu didn’t have the very best objectives towards Greece and led a heterogenous union extending from intellectual leftists to conservative Kurds, from liberals to hard-right nationalists. How would he implement his view?” Filis stated.
Prior to Erdogan pertained to power in 2003, Turkey had actually currently threatened Greece with war if it must exercise its right under the UN Law of the Sea to extend its territorial waters to 12 nautical miles off its islands in the Aegean (both nations presently declare 6 nautical miles).
There are countless Greek islands in the Aegean, however just a handful of Turkish ones. Using the Law of the Sea would provide Greece direct sovereignty over 71.5 percent of the Aegean’s waters, up from 43.5 percent today. Turkish territorial waters would increase from 7.5 percent of the Aegean to 8.7 percent.
The verge of war
In 1996, Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Ciller introduced a policy of contesting unoccupied Greek islets.
When she put Turkish task forces on among those islands, Imia, the 2 nations concerned the verge of war.
Greece and Turkey had actually currently been on a war footing considering that 1974 when Turkey got into Cyprus in reaction to a coup effort on the island introduced by a colonels’ dictatorship then ruling Greece.
Erdogan concerned power in 2003, when Greece and Turkey remained in the middle of historical talks that were expected to settle their maritime border differences and open a course for Turkey to sign up with the European Union.
The talks meandered, and Turkey’s EU potential customers dimmed since of opposition from France and Germany.
A 2018 alliance in between Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) stiffened Turkish diplomacy. In 2020, Erdogan stated he would no longer follow an arrangement with the EU to keep back asylum candidates.
He sent out a study ship, the Oruc Reis, to search for hydrocarbons in what Greece considers its jurisdiction, setting off a complete implementation of the 2 nations’ navies.
The list below year, he released a brand-new policy of contesting Greece’s lived in east Aegean islands.
Greeks still appear to choose him over the political leaders that hail from the nonreligious opposition that held power prior to him.
“Better to have Erdogan. When I was a lad, the left-wing prime minister [Bulent] Ecevit got into Cyprus. In 1996, Ciller produced the Imia event,” stated Panayotis Konstantopoulos, a car park owner in main Athens.
“This one hasn’t done anything. As we state back house in Arcadia, a pet dog that barks does not bite,” Konstantopoulos stated.
News representative Marinos Kollaros does not think Kilicdaroglu would have been excellent news for Greece, either.
“Kilicdaroglu is the one who informed Erdogan, ‘You’re all talk and no action,'” he stated, keeping in mind how Kilicdaroglu motivated Erdogan to attack Aegean islands in June 2022.
“You scream, you call. There is absolutely nothing! Did [Bulent] Ecevit and [Necmettin] Erbakan shout? Did they call? Did they state we’re coming? No, they did what was needed … Our custom is to do what is required!” Kilicdaroglu tweeted on June 28 in 2015, describing the governing union that attacked Cyprus.
Relations in between Greece and Turkey started to noticeably decrease in December 2017, when Erdogan checked out Athens and revealed he wished to modify the Lausanne Treaty, which set the borders in between the 2 nations in 1923.
He left relations even worse than they were when he showed up, however upon his go back to Ankara, Kilicdaroglu baited him.
“Why didn’t you ask Greece to return the 14 islands?” he required, a recommendation to the rocky islets declares started under Ciller.
Talks around the corner?
Erdogan’s political fate appeared in hazard after 2 earthquakes eliminated 10s of countless individuals in early February, and Turkish opposition leaders blamed him for not imposing building regulations.
He came in 5 points ahead of Kilicdaroglu in the very first round of the governmental election on May 14.
“The Turks are utilized to him. He’s their daddy. They do not understand the other crowd,” stated Konstantopoulos, describing the six-party opposition union. “Kilicdaroglu was unnoticeable.”
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis stated he would look for to meet Erdogan at the NATO top in Vilnius next month.
Formally, Greece states it just has something to go over with Turkey– the delimitation of industrial exploitation rights on the sea bed (described as the continental rack) and the column of water above it (described as the special financial zone, or EEZ).
Under the UN’s Law of the Sea, Greece declares a continental rack and EEZ of practically 500,000 sq km (almost 200,000 sq miles) around its islands, where it might work out unique fishing rights or check out for gas.
Turkey, regardless of its long continental coast, is entitled to much less, according to UN law.
That is a significant reason that Turkey disagrees with the Law of the Sea on whether islands must have such rights and is among a handful of nations that have actually not signed it. Previous Turkish ambassador to Athens Burak Ozugergin has actually informed Al Jazeera that Turkey might strike an arrangement with Greece under the Law of the Sea, likewise understood as UNCLOS.
“International law includes a much bigger scope than UNCLOS. There become part of UNCLOS that are either codified or have actually ended up being traditional law, so it’s not an issue for Turkey to comply with them … we do not require to be celebration to UNCLOS. The whole body of worldwide law, consisting of the pertinent court choices exists,” Ozugergin informed Al Jazeera in an interview given up October 2021.
The sticking point, Ozugergin stated, is that Greece will not negotiate its territorial water rights, while Turkey firmly insists that territorial water and EEZ must both be under conversation.
“In the Aegean, if the territorial water limitations are extended by Greece, then we truly do not have much high seas delegated discuss, that makes litigating essentially worthless. Turkey is all set to go to court, however with all appropriate concerns,” he stated in an interview in October 2022.
Greece states it will not discuss its sovereignty with Turkey.
“We have one standard distinction, which is the delimitation of maritime limits, indicating the EEZ and continental rack,” Mitsotakis stated in a tv interview on May 29.
“Other problems, such as demilitarisation or sovereignty are merely never ever going to be talked about by Greece,” he stated.
Couple of in Greece anticipate that Turkey will soften any of its positions due to the fact that its claims are unilateral and only issue Athens.
“For Turkey, the concerns it raises versus Greece aren’t of crucial value. They’re working out points,” Filis stated.
“If the scenario remains as it is, Turkey loses absolutely nothing, however Greece’s sovereignty is challenged, and sovereignty is a state’s really structure,” he stated.
“We desire a regular nation we can talk with, that does not contest our sovereignty, that does not state outrageous things,” Filis stated.
“Less ambitiously, we can go for a nation that does not truly suggest what it states when it grabs Greek islets and is prepared to trade its position for the sensation that it isn’t hemmed into the Anatolian mainland by Greece’s lots of islands,” he stated.
After Erdogan’s Athens see in 2017, Greece started a rearmament program to offer itself what authorities describe as “deterrent power” versus Turkish military action.
Mitsotakis deals with a repeat election on June 25. The preliminary election on May 21, which provided him 41 percent of the vote, recommends he will win.
Lots of Greeks hope that fresh federal governments will cause a minimum of a resumption of talks. Very few are enthusiastic that essential problems will be dealt with.