If We Don’t Act Now, When Will We?
Turkey’s escalating claims over Greek maritime rights demand urgent, strategic responses from Greece, challenging current complacency amid rising regional tensions and shifting military dynamics in the Aegean.
If we do not react now, when will we react?
The provocative intention of Turkey to officially legitimize Greece’s sovereign rights raises questions about the appropriate responses of our country,
especially since March 2020 when Turkey officially submitted the Blue Homeland Map to the United Nations. The cases of the electrical interconnection of Kasos with the Republic of Cyprus, the laying of optical fibers between Amorgos and Astypalaia, and the “gray-zoning of Greek islands” are a continuation of our country’s complacency.
1. Why has our country not submitted a legal and political narrative to the United Nations referencing Articles 12, 15, and 16 of the Treaty of Lausanne, which state that Turkey officially has 3-mile coasts?
Where are the narratives from the Professors of International Law who served for many years in government positions?
Where are the doctoral and postgraduate dissertations presenting the narrative of Turkey’s confinement within 3 miles?
2. Is it possible for our country to tolerate Turkish military activities between the large Greek islands of the Eastern Aegean, where there are four Firing Ranges and Exercise Fields that Turkey has incorporated into its Maritime Spatial Planning starting from 2025?
How will Greece be able to operationally support the Greek Islands of the Eastern Aegean in times of crisis or tension when Turkey has been “gray-zoning” the Aegean increasingly since 2019?
3. Why were the Patriot missiles withdrawn from Karpathos and Didymoteicho during a sudden meeting of the National Security Council (K.Y.S.E.A.), at the very moment when Trump revealed he had granted Iran a short delay and had planned to attack?
Has the Iran-USA conflict ended? If it has, why did Germany transfer a Patriot artillery battery to Turkey at this timing?
Does the Souda Base, which also serves as a US base and was operationally covered by the Karpathos artillery battery, no longer face operational risks from Iranian ballistic missile attacks?
4. Why has half of the fleet of our Navy not been relocated to Souda, when K.Y.S.E.A. has decided since 2021 to decentralize the Navy due to the operational strengthening of Turkey’s Aksaz Naval Base and the Dalaman Air Base next to Rhodes?
5. What operational countermeasures has our country taken when our fishermen see Turkish fishermen even inside Greek Territorial Waters of the Eastern Aegean, fishing in the Cyclades while invoking Turkish claims?
6. When, truly, should the complacency in the calm waters of the Aegean, where our country is trapped by the Athens Declaration, end?
The political leadership must realize that the appeasement it pursues by reducing tension is, in reality, a concession tolerated towards Turkey because it tries to avoid a “fear of war syndrome.”
However, this is entirely unjustifiable considering the deterrent and exceptional armament programs in which our country excels.
