A bellicose Erdogan means a dangerous year in the Aegean
Turkey began 2023 as it ended 2022 – threatening war to “defeat every enemy”. In a video, which you may find more amusing than the Defence Ministry in Ankara intended, a series of beyond macho military types rap from inside the cockpit of an F-16, the control room of a warship, and during various derring-do infantry escapades.
Leaving to one side the comical effect of the video, its tone re-enforces the increasingly bellicose rhetoric the Turkish government used in 2022 to threaten Greece. Some analysts suggest the language used last year is unprecedented in its hostility. That is likely to continue in 2023, not least because this is the centenary of Ataturk’s founding of the Turkish Republic from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, and also election year in both countries.
After 20 years in power President Erdogan will face his sternest electoral test in the June ballot. His increasingly authoritarian leadership style allied with a struggling economy and inflation at 80 per cent means his AKP party is polling at around 30 per cent. As the election nears, the nationalist rhetoric over Greece has been stepped up, as has the frequency of jailing opposition leaders. The most prominent figure to receive a jail sentence recently is the Mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu from the secular centre-left CHP party. He was sentenced to two years and banned from public office for “insulting public officials” but has appealed against the ruling.
The main issue between Turkey and Greece is Ankara’s perceived militarisation of Greek islands in the Aegean. Last year President Erdogan made a steady stream of threats against Greece including telling the Greeks that the Turks “may come suddenly in the night”. In December he said that unless “you stay calm” Turkish ballistic missiles could hit Athens.
A second issue concerns territorial water. Just last week his foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu warned Greece that if it sought to extend its territorial waters it would be seen as justification for Turkey going to war. “Don’t get into sham heroism by trusting those who might have your back” he said, “Don’t seek adventurism,” “It won’t end well for you!”
Ankara says international treaties prohibit Greece from militarising several Greek islands, apart from law enforcement officers and a few lightly-armed troops. Athens argues that the few extra soldiers and their equipment which have been sent to not break the treaties and points out that many of the islands are close to Turkey which keeps large troop formations close to the coast. Under international maritime law Greece can extend its territorial waters up to 12 nautical miles from its coastline although if another country’s coast is within 12 miles the waters are shared. However, since 1995 Turkey has said such extension in the Aegean would be seen as a cause of war.
The two countries have come close to war at least three times in the last half century but have been “talked down” by American diplomacy. However, Washington now has less influence in Ankara than in previous decades.
As Erdogan has moved increasingly towards authoritarianism at home, and aggression abroad, the Turkish/American relationship has deteriorated. When the US allied with Syria’s Kurds in 2014 to help fight ISIS, the Turks saw this as Washington helping Kurdish terrorist groups fighting Turkey. The Americans were incensed when its NATO ally bought the Russia S-400 missile defence system and in retaliation excluded Ankara from a project to build F-35 fighter jets.
After the failed coup against Erdogan in 2016, his administration encouraged the view that the Americans had somehow been involved in it as part of a strategy to destroy the country. The President has pursued the dream of the “Blue Homeland” in which large parts of the Aegean and the Black Sea come under Turkish control and portrays American policy of seeking to “besiege” his country. As proof, he refers to the 2017 US/Greek defence deal by which the US is helping to build up the Greek armed forces and in return Washington has greater access to bases in Greece which is also a NATO partner. Erdogan asked, “Against whom are these bases established… Against Russia is the thing that they say” but, he responds, “It is a lie”.
The Turkish military has supported Azerbaijan against Armenia and been sent on adventures in Iraq, Iran, Libya, and Syria, where this year they may again conduct a serious ground offensive against Kurdish forces.
That is more likely than a war with Greece, but Athens also has an election coming up in July and if there are flashpoints between the two countries, neither government will be in the mood to make concessions. The Greeks have already signalled they are considering extending their territorial waters. Washington has more sway in Athens than Ankara these days, but they would need to move quickly if an incident in the Aegean threatens to spiral out of control.
Erdogan has spent several years building a narrative to justify a war to his own public, just as Putin did before invading Ukraine. There are more restraining factors preventing the two NATO powers coming to blows, but this will be a dangerous year in the Aegean.
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