Why Ankara is renewing war threat

With its threat to Greece about not extending its territorial waters south of Crete, Ankara is attempting to prevent its looming exclusion from the Mediterranean.

The expediting of hydrocarbon exploration, with US approval, and the unilateral declaration of an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) by Cairo have alarmed Ankara, which now realizes that the Turkish-Libyan memorandum is now regarded by all parties as having no substance. 

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu’s reintroduction of the casus belli in the event of an extension of Greek territorial waters to 12 nautical miles did not surprise anyone in Athens, as this is one of the persistent threats that Ankara occasionally deploys.

Cavusoglu’s reference to Crete, however, is connected to the unease that is prevailing in Ankara as a result of a number of developments to the island’s south, which it sees as signs of a possible activation of an older and already existing project that provides for a partial extension of territorial waters to the west and south of Crete.

Among the various technical scenarios mapped in the past was one that foresaw the closure of all the bays from Paleochora Hania (Cape Krios) to the southwest of the prefecture of Iraklio (Cape Lithino), so that with the extension of 12 nautical miles between these points and Gavdos, a maritime triangle of Greek sovereignty would be created.

Athens does not, of course, accept the threat of war over a sovereign right, but at the same time it is clear from geography that the west and south of Crete are not in the Aegean Sea.

The Turkish casus belli of 1995 refers to the extension of Greece’s territorial waters from 6 to 12 nautical miles.

In recent years, however, through various diplomatic channels, sometimes with blunt directness, sometimes less openly, the Turks had conveyed to Athens that for Ankara the casus belli not only concerns the north of Crete but the whole of its coastline in all directions.

The Turkish foreign minister’s latest statements have given Athens the opportunity to communicate to its allies the obvious fact that Turkey, the country calling for the demilitarization of the east Aegean islands, is at the same time threatening Greece with war should it exercise its rights as outlined in international law.