A Turkish crew was harassed by the Greek coast guard while fishing off the coast of Türkiye’s western Aydın province, local media reported Monday.
The fishing crew was sailing near the Kuşadası district on Sunday night when the Greek soldiers appeared and began banging on the boat’s hull, the boat’s owner, Ali Sarıhan, said.
“We had cast our nets along the border, and the current pushed us a little into Greek waters. Suddenly, a Greek coast guard boat with its full-on headlights began coming at us,” Sarıhan recalled.
The Greek soldiers were shouting and telling his crew to leave the area. They collared Sarıhan’s boat and smashed its windows.
Then they came around, hosing down the boat, which flooded the captain’s cabin.
“The soldiers threw stones at us. They couldn’t get enough of it and pushed into Turkish waters,” Sarıhan said.
The fishermen reported the incident to the Turkish coast guard and refused to back down.
“When the Turkish coast guard arrived, they chased the Greek soldiers away all the way back to the Greek border,” Sarıhan said, adding that the crew pulled up the nets in the meantime.
Later, the Turkish guards returned to their post and resumed patrolling the naval border while keeping security measures tight until the morning, according to the fisherman.
“Our cabin is troublingly damaged,” he added. The crew is hoping their devices are safe from harm.
The Greek coast guard often harasses in the same manner Turkish boats fishing in international waters of the Aegean Sea.
Ankara summoned the Greek Embassy undersecretary and issued a diplomatic note last year in February after the Greek coast guard injured a Turkish fisherman in the leg while firing warning shots at a boat in the eastern Aegean.
The Greek coast guard is also notorious for a similar and often harsher treatment of asylum-seekers in the Aegean.
The proximity of Türkiye’s Aegean coast to Greek islands makes it a favorite destination of irregular migrants hoping to reach Europe. Some stay in Greece, but most look for ways to get to other European countries, particularly Germany, to pursue better lives.
As the European Union grapples with an influx of irregular migrants amid aggravated conflicts and hardships in source countries, Greece often resorts to pushback practices against international laws.
Ankara and global rights groups have frequently condemned it as a violation of humanitarian values for endangering the lives of vulnerable migrants, while Athens denies all allegations.
Accounts of migrants intercepted by Turkish authorities, whether in the Aegean Sea or across the land border between Türkiye and Greece, show that Greek security forces often beat them and sometimes try to sink their rubber boats.
The issue is one of the numerous long-standing problems Türkiye and Greece are at odds over, particularly competing claims to jurisdiction in the Eastern Mediterranean, overlapping claims over their continental shelves, maritime boundaries, airspace, energy, the ethnically split island of Cyprus and the status of the islands in the Aegean Sea.
The dispute over sea boundaries led to a tense naval standoff between the two NATO members in the Eastern Mediterranean in 2020 before the two sides agreed to resume direct diplomatic contacts under pressure from allied governments, including Germany.
Ankara also condemns Athens for building a military presence on disputed Aegean islands in violation of postwar treaties, warning that the continued militarization could lead to Türkiye questioning their ownership.
The sides have traded accusations over airspace violations, but there haven’t been any skirmishes in the past three years.
Relations, however, remained icy until this year, when both sides showed goodwill and humanitarian assistance after following two earthquakes that killed thousands in southeastern Türkiye and a tragic train incident that rocked Greece.
Turkish and Greek officials have warned against steps and statements that could damage the current environment of trust as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis pledged to maintain the positive atmosphere after holding two rare face-to-face meetings.
The two nations have further revived their high-level strategic peace talks as their diplomats met in Athens earlier this month to review mutual progress in trade, economy and energy, transport, education, health and environment, as well as societal relations and new areas of cooperation.
An upcoming summit in Thessaloniki in December is expected to be a significant leap in bilateral ties. Erdoğan will travel over the Aegean Sea and meet Mitsotakis in person.
