On Tuesday, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis urged Turkey to stop ‘aggressive posturing’ over a maritime dispute and engage in talks. In addition to strengthening ties with Gulf countries, he made the statement during a trip to Saudi Arabia.
Greece’s PM warned that Greece had ‘drawn our lines very, very clearly’ after signing defense deals with the United States and France earlier this month. Despite media reports to the contrary, Mitsotakis said that there is no geopolitical threat at Davos in the Desert, with Prince Mohammed in the audience. ‘And I think Turkey will also realise that this aggressive posturing in the eastern Mediterranean will not get them anywhere’.
Last year, tensions between Greece and Turkey skyrocketed when Turkey sent a gas exploration ship and a small naval flotilla into Greek territorial waters in search of natural resources. Earlier this year, Recep Tayyip Erdogan endorsed the partition of Cyprus, which Ankara invaded in 1974 in response to a coup engineered by Greece’s military junta. In addition, Greece accuses Turkey of not doing enough to curb smugglers who smuggle migrants in unsafe boats and dinghies from its shores.
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UNHCR reports that more than 2,500 people have crossed the Aegean from neighbouring Turkey this year, compared with over 9,700 in 2020. Mitsotakis said, ‘I think we’ve set up our alliances, we’ve drawn our lines very, very clearly. And I do hope that at some point, Turkey will constructively engage with us to resolve the one main outstanding issue we have which is the delineation of maritime shores. We’re always open for dialogue, but we will not be intimidated and we will not accept our sovereign rights to be compromised’.
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