Türkiye and Greece are again at odds over sovereignty in the Aegean Sea. Foreign Ministry sources said Türkiye’s reaction to maritime water violations in recent days by Greece was conveyed to Athens. Sources said diplomatic procedures in such cases were “clear” and “followed to the letter for years in case of such violations.” Sources denied that Türkiye did not take action over violations.
Ankara says it is committed to maintaining the positive climate in relations with its historic foe Greece, but the process is still proving to be turbulent, especially in the Aegean Sea, where Turkish and Greek jets often scuffled until very recently and civilian boats can get mixed up in border skirmishes.
Reports surfaced last Sunday that the Greek coast guard a week earlier had ventured into Türkiye’s territorial waters to chase a boat off the coast of Muğla province. Footage showed the boat's driver abandoning the boat and a Greek soldier boarding it before sailing away with it back to Greece.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya told Greek Minister of Maritime Affairs and Insular Policy Christos Stylianides that Türkiye was unhappy with the Greek coast guard’s violation of Turkish territorial waters, Yerlikaya’s office said Monday.
“Such violations are unacceptable to preserve good neighborly relations,” Yerlikaya said in a phone call. Stylianides said the incident was not political and assured such violations would not be repeated. He said an investigation was underway and Turkish authorities would be informed.
The Greek coast guard often harasses in the same manner Turkish boats fishing in international waters of the Aegean Sea. It is also notorious for a similar and often harsher treatment of asylum-seekers in the Aegean.
On Wednesday, Turkish media reported that a Greek coast guard boat opened fire into the air after spotting a Turkish fishing boat off the coast of Bodrum in southwestern Türkiye and apparently forced it toward the coast. A Turkish coast guard crew chased away the Greek boat, the media reported.
Türkiye, which has the longest continental coastline in the Eastern Mediterranean, rejects the maritime boundary claims of Greece and the Greek Cypriot administration, arguing their excessive claims violate the sovereign rights of both Türkiye and the Turkish Cypriots in the region.
The dispute over the waters dividing the neighbors arose again this spring between Türkiye and Greece when Athens announced that it would build two marine parks in the Aegean and Ionian Seas by the end of 2024, despite objections by Türkiye.
The plan for the park in the Aegean has irked Ankara, which has accused Athens of exploiting environmental issues to push a geopolitical agenda. Greece’s Foreign Ministry retorted that Ankara was “politicizing a clearly environmental issue.”
Tensions have eased in recent years and the longstanding sparring partners have pledged to keep open channels of communication, seek military confidence-building measures to eliminate sources of tension and work on the issues that have kept them apart.
They have also looked to work more closely on areas of mutual interest such as trade, tourism, health and migration.
"We have encountered some setbacks in the past, but the truth is that there is a strong political will to actually moderate the consequences of our disputes and to establish some de-escalation mechanisms at the ministerial level," Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis said earlier this week as Erdoğan and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis met in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.
