Sea Control - Sea Control 199 - The Eastern Mediterranean Question with Dr. Ioannis N. Grigoriadis and Dr. Jan Asmussen

Episode Date: September 13, 2020

Links:What a judicial solution to disputes in the eastern Mediterranean might look like, by Moritz Neubert and Umut Yüksel, The London School of Economics and Political Science, June 2nd, 2020.NATO Secretary General descusses eastern Mediterranean, Libya with Foreign Minister of Turkey, Aug 19, 2020 How Did the Eastern Mediterranean Become the Eye of a Geopolitical Storm? By Michaël Tanchum, foreignpolicy.com, August 18th, 2020Pulling Back the Curtain on Turkey’s Natural Gas Strategy, by John V. Bowlus, War on the Rocks, August 26, 2020The Annan Plan

Hey folks, Jared here. It's the kickoff for Regional Strategies Week here at SimSec and we have a barn burner for you. We're headed to the eastern Mediterranean with Dr. Yanis Grigoriadis and Dr. Jan Asmus and discuss Cyprus, Turkey, Greece, Libya, France, Italy, Israel, Egypt, Russia, NATO, the EU, UNCLOS, natural gas rights. It is a lot and we got it all in in about an hour. I want to preface the episode with our usual disclaimer that all opinions are our own and not representative of any institutions with which we might otherwise be associated. I also want to advertise for Project Trident's next challenge, our fiction contest in concert with the U.S. Naval Institute. We've assembled an all-star cast of judges and submissions are due

30th of September. You can find more information on our website at simsec.org. Finally, as always, I want to advertise and strongly recommend our friends in the SimSec Podcast Network and our second podcast feed, The Bilge Pumps. You can find Alex and friends positively vibrating after consuming too much iron brew on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, and wherever else you download your podcasts. It's a more low-key, slightly less serious approach to current events in the maritime domain and naval history. Check them out wherever you download your podcasts.

With that, I'll turn it over to Kimber's men. You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Technology. Aloha, shipmates, and welcome back aboard Sea Control. Today we're headed to the eastern Mediterranean with our guests Dr. Jan Asmussen and Dr. Yanis Grigoriadis to discuss the competing maritime claims and unrest surrounding Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, France, Italy, Egypt, Israel, the EU, Libya, NATO, and I'm already tired. I think I should throw a caveat on the beginning of this to say that this is a dynamic topic. We're recording this on the 6th of September, is set to air the 13th of September, even as we've gone back and forth working out our script and the questions that we wanted to discuss, events have overrun us on several occasions.

We've had to go back and rework things, so we'll try to catch everything, but just understand the time constraints that as we record this on the 6th, we're not aware of what's going to happen from the 7th through the 13th. and there may be some changes when we go to air. So, gentlemen, let me say thank you for joining us. You're both new to our listeners, and I'd like to start by asking you to introduce yourselves. Jan, would you mind starting? No, thank you.

I'm a political scientist at the Institute of Social Science at the University of Kiel, but I worked as well at various universities in Cyprus and published a couple of books and articles in the region. In addition, I served at the Polish Naval Academy at the Faculty of Command and Naval Operations, so I hope to combine regional and naval expertise today. Thank you very much and welcome. And, Yanis, how about you? Thank you very much, Jarosz, for this invitation. My name is Yanis Grigoriadis. I'm an Associate Professor and Jean Monnet Chair in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Bifing University, Ankara. and I'm also the head of the Turkey program at the Hellenic Foundation of European and Foreign Policy in Athens. So I'm a Greek academic working in Turkey and I've worked a lot and published a lot of research on Greek-Turkish relations and the Cyprus issue.

So what we're going to discuss is something that I've been working on for quite some time. Thank you. And again, I really appreciate both of you coming on to discuss this topic. As I mentioned before, it's very complex. There's a lot going on here. We've linked a number of articles in the show notes so listeners can try to keep up, but I watch the news and I have Greek and Turkish naval task forces underway, frigates colliding with each other, the French forward deploying fighters, and we're getting opinions from every international organization that you can think of, the EU, Egypt, Libya is involved. A lot of this centers around Cyprus, though, which has been a source of tension between Greece and Turkey for decades. And I realize this question could be its own podcast. It actually will become its own podcast in the future year. I'm working on that separately.

But, Yanis, could you describe Greek and Turkish relations over Cyprus and why there's so much tension there to begin with? It all boils back to the late 19th century, really, when Cyprus became a British colony and was removed from Greek-Turkish nationalist confrontations and the wars that signaled the end of the Ottoman Empire and the introduction of the Republic of Turkey and the Kingdom of Greece in the early 1920s. Cyprus remained a British colony. So it's only in the 1950s that Greek Cypriots

requested their union with Greece, requesting the principle of self-determination. At the same time, the Turkish minority on the island requested the separation of the island so that they can join Turkey or they can be separate from the Greek Cypriot majority. In the end, there was a compromise in 1960 that brought the Republic of Cyprus to existence. But soon thereafter, there were intercommunal conflicts in 1963 that led to the departure of Turkish Cypriots from the government structures of the Republic of Cyprus and their sort of exclusion, their limitation into enclaves in the island. In 1974, to make a long story short, there was a Greek-Junda instigated coup aiming to overthrow the Cyprus government and bring about a union of Cyprus with Greece, and Turkey took the opportunity to invade the island, claiming that it protected the constitutional order in Cyprus. Eventually, Turkey, however, decided to partition the island and declare the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in 1983,

a state that has not been recognized by anybody but Turkey in the international community. So there is a problem, there is a conflict, but there's also legal, political, and ethnic dimensions. And this problem has poisoned Greek-Turkish relations for the last decades. because in many circumstances, when Greek and Turkish diplomats try to find ways to improve their relations, there is a spillover from the Cyprus issue into their own bilateral relations. And I think this is what we've been experiencing in the Eastern Mediterranean in the last years. But we can discuss this in greater detail later.

Absolutely. Jan, did you have anything you wanted to add? I see you nodding vigorously in my other window. Well, no, I think Jan's point was excellent. I just would like to add two things that might be important for our discussion today. First is that there was this possibility of a solution on the island that was in 2004, which was connected to the so-called Anand Plan. During that plan, actually, for the first time, the Cypriots, Greek and Turkish Cypriots, were asked whether or not they would endorse a solution. And this was rejected by a large margin on the Greek-Cypriot side.

And that is, until today, a very important point. And we will come back to this point when it comes to who owns the gas in the region. So this argument pops up in all this discussion. So I just wanted to add this point. I'm very fine with all the other points Yanis gave us. Thank you, Jan. Could I ask then a follow-up question for that? What would that solution have looked like?

Are we talking about a permanent partition that both sides recognize or something different? No, we would talk about a federal republic. We would now have a federal republic in Cyprus with a Greek-Cypriot and a Turkish-Cypriot part, with a common president, with a common government, but with a federal structure. And the Cyprus problem as such would be over, and I think Yanis will probably agree with me, we wouldn't have this discussion today. Thank you, that's valuable context. So now we put Cyprus into some historical context, but this dispute really begins with Cyprus. How did this ongoing dispute begin? And Yanis, I'll go to you first. Yes. Well, it is all about the discovery of natural gas reserves in the exclusive economic zone of Israel some years ago that raised attention to the probability, the possibility that there is natural gas within the exclusive economic zone of Cyprus and Egypt.

Well, Cyprus conducted some exploration in the south part of the Cypriot Exclusive Economic Zone in the so-called Aphrodite gas and the so-called Aphrodite gas field was discovered. So interest in the potential of the Eastern Mediterranean as a new energy export center increased. And of course, under these circumstances, the Cyprus problem also became involved. In the beginning of the previous decade, there was hope that energy could actually fuel peace negotiations, because a peace agreement along the lines of the UN plan or a similar plan, a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation, would entail a lot of costs, compensations for refugees that wouldn't be reinstated to their properties or sort of developing federal common structures. All this would be a very expensive project. And there was hope that this energy could fuel this project. In addition to that,

the natural gas was called to create an additional incentive for Turkey and Cyprus to come closer because this relationship is still harming security and stability in the Eastern Mediterranean. Turkey has refused to recognize the Republic of Cyprus since the 1960s. It only recognizes the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, but it's alone in this. The rest of the world recognizes the Republic of Cyprus. So whenever we talk about, right now even, we talk about negotiations about what to do, Turkey says that I can't speak to Cyprus because there is no Cyprus for me. So the problem is sort of still affecting us in many, many different ways.

Of course, there's another important problem that we need to highlight here. Turkey and Greece have had disagreements on the delineation of their maritime borders in the Aegean. The focus ever since the 1970s, and even this dispute was a derivative of the Cyprus War in 1974. So the issue was raised only after the Cyprus events of 1974. So the issues were mainly raised in the Aegean, but in recent months, in recent weeks, we see this conflict spilling over to the eastern Mediterranean. Because Turkey's involvement, Turkey's intervention started in the Cyprus exclusive economic zone, but it's increasingly moving toward Greece considering its own exclusive economic zone. So if this is to be a Cyprus-Turkey issue and starts becoming a Greece-Turkey or a Greece-Turkey-Libya or a Greece-Turkey-Egypt issue, so the situation becomes more complicated and more dangerous for regional stability. Thanks. And Jan, I want to come to you because I think our next question drives directly to the point Jan was just making is how does Libya factor into this?

May I just add one thing to the previous question? Absolutely. The thing is that in the negotiations, I mean, I said 2004, the plan collapsed, but the negotiations are ongoing. As soon as in 2011, gas was discovered close to Cyprus, the Turkish separate side more or less demanded that in the negotiations, gas should be discussed as well. And the position of the government of Cyprus is that the gas issue is not for negotiations now. It will be, as a result of the solution, part of the wealth of the entire island. And this actually prompted the Turkish Cypriot government to agree with Turkey that Turkey started drilling operations in the region. So in the beginning, Turkey actually accepted the exclusive economic zone, but, of course, on behalf of the Turkish Cypriots, that should have their part.

Of course, now their argument is a different one when we go to this and we go to this later. But it's interesting that this escalated sort of out of the discussions between Greek and Turkish Cypriots as well before it moved to the points that we already heard from Yanis. Now, Libya. Libya is an interesting thing because we have several parties, and we will discuss this later, to this conflict, which are not Greece and Turkey. But France has an interest in Libya. It's more or less clear that it's General Haftar there, while Turkey is supporting the government with weapons and even with soldiers and the soil. And Italy is more on the Turkish side here as well, because it's favoring the government in Tripoli, so it has a slightly different position. Now, what this resulted to was that the government in Tripoli and Turkey have signed an agreement last year on the respective acknowledgement of their continental shelves. And it's not a surprise, if you look at this, these continental shelves, of course, clash directly with the Greek economic zone. And that is, of course, why Libya is so important. So it's sort of used, or the government in Tripoli was sort of used by Turkey to have an extra argument in this dispute. The government in Tripoli has, of course, the reason to survive. They don't have a particular interest in gas or in the continental shelf. We just followed Turkish wishes in this respect.

So, there are a few interesting items in the foreign policy article linked in our show notes that speak directly to the maritime boundaries questions. The first of which is that Turkey believes its maritime boundaries, and I'm paraphrasing from the article here, unjustly and illegally deny Turkey part of its maritime territory, and given the UNCLOS principles of equity, it could likely have a greater claim. So, if it recognizes UNCLOS, why doesn't Turkey recognize UNCLOS? And, Yanis, I'll start with you on this one. Yes. Well, Turkey is one of the very few countries that hasn't signed and ratified the UNCLOS, which was sort of signed in the Montego Bay in 1982. And the reason for that is that UNCLOS has recognized rights to islands regarding territorial waters, exclusive economic zone, and continental shelf that would really put Turkey's claims over the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean into a very difficult position. Why? Because the principles that Unklaus has introduced is that islands are treated like the mainland in terms of their rights in principle. And this is the rule for territorial waters when it comes to continental self or exclusive economic zone. There are principles like equity, but they are introduced as an exception to the rule that islands enjoy full rights.

So, Turkey has refused to do this. Of course, as you said, sometimes Turkey uses arguments from some of the articles of UNCLOS, but fails to subscribe to the main articles of the UNCLOS that give this equal rights to islands compared to mainland. Of course, the reason is that Greece has a huge number of islands in the Aegean Sea, and the implementation of the UNCLOS in the Aegean Sea would give Greece a very big advantage. This is the basis of the Greek-Turkish dispute in the Aegean since the 1970s. So it is the width of territorial waters, and of course, it is the width of continental shelf or exclusive economic zone. However, the GNC is so narrow in that respect, so there is not much continental share for exclusive economic zone to be shared if territorial waters are extended. The difference now in the Eastern Mediterranean becomes more pronounced. Why? Because Turkey signed with the Libya government of Tripoli an agreement that fully endorses Turkey's position on the effect of islands on the exclusive economic zone. And this time, we don't talk about an island that has attracted so much attention in recent weeks,

Megisti or Kastelorizo or Megis in Turkish. We're talking about islands like Crete or sort of Karpathos or Rhodes. These are big islands with hundreds of thousands or millions of residents. So the Turkey-Libya agreement refuses any exclusive economic zone rights to Crete. so this is the reason why the greek government was so alarmed in november and shifted its policy of signing agreements on exclusive economic zone with its neighbors because greece's position for years it was very adamant greece appeared unwilling to make any compromises on the principle of equal distance between greek islands and the italian coast or greek islands south of

Crete or Crete in the Egyptian and the Libyan coast, and this was the reason why there were no agreements. But now, the Greek government decided to be more flexible, and it was able to sign two agreements within a couple of months. And particularly important is the agreement with Egypt, because as Jan said, this agreement directly contravenes with the agreement of Turkey and Libya so this generates an international legal dispute so the Greek side can claim now that we should refer this issue to the international court without an agreement with Egypt Greece's position would have been difficult because it couldn't declare politically they can say that the agreement is null and void or we don't care about this but legally that would be very difficult

to do and say. So this is the importance of the agreement between Greece and Egypt. And in my opinion, this is one of the reasons why Turkey reacted so unrelate to this. And we had an escalation in the situation in the Mediterranean in recent weeks. Jan, do you have anything to add on either UNCLOS or the Greece-Egypt agreement? Or I think Greece has also made a claim with Italy now in the Adriatic, where those two countries are in dispute. Anything to add on any of those? Well, let me just add something on UNCLOS. It is very interesting because, as Yannis said, Turkey doesn't recognize UNCLOS or didn't sign it or ratify it, and what I find interesting that actually if the case would go to The

Hague, then Turkey's chances to get a good deal are not that bad, because if you look at previous rulings of the court, it will take the long coast of Turkey and its right to access to the sea into consideration. We see this in the agreement in the Barents Sea between Russia and Norway, for example. So it doesn't mean that Turkey wouldn't have any chances, but I don't think that Turkey will do it. Turkey's position, on the other hand, is not so unique as well, because if you look what happened between Australia and East Timor, that we had a similar case where

Australia basically said the court has no jurisdiction over the case and insisted on a bilateral agreement. And that's what finally happened in 2015. East Timor and Australia signed an agreement and now came to terms how to to delineate their maritime borders. So Turkey, in my view, would have a good chance when they would go to it, but they will not go to it. And maybe to Italy we come a little bit later in the discussion because we have to discuss Italy as well at a later stage.

Let me add an important piece of information here. In 2004, with the opportunity of resolving the Cyprus issue, In the Helsinki Agreement that named Turkey a candidate state for EU membership in 1999, there was also a term that stated that recent Turkey had to negotiate on resolving the maritime disputes and failing to reach a solution, they should refer the case to the International Court of Justice. This is in 2004, in December 2004. That's the time when we were, everybody was most optimistic about EU-Turkey relations. And that's maybe the time that it was most likely for Turkey to agree to such a decision. And unfortunately, the European authorities and the Greek government of the time did not push on this issue, didn't make Turkey and Greece refer the case to the court, as was the decision of the Helsinki Council in December 1999. So had this happened, we wouldn't have had these problems right now because there would be a decision which would be offering mutually acceptable compromise that would address the fundamental interests of all sides. Thank you. I want to start walking through all the external actors here that we mentioned and go through those one at a time. So, first, Italy has some economic interests here, which you both have mentioned at some point. Are they acting in anything other than an economic capacity?

And, Jan, I'll come to you for this question first. Yeah, well, Italy has signed a security and defense cooperation agreement with Cyprus, but that falls short of any military assurances in times of conflict. So it's interesting that they are still in that maneuver, but it's interesting as well that the Italian government didn't make any statements towards this to send a strong message to the Turks as the French defense ministry and foreign ministries actually did. And I wonder, actually, if the interest of Italy is diminished as well by the announcement of Greece to enlarge its exclusive economic zone now in the Adria. So that comes actually at a time where Greece doesn't need any extra conflict on this matter, especially not if it were to be referred to the Hague. So I'm not sure how Italian position is. However, they don't try to cut their relations with Ankara.

The minister of defense, Italian minister of defense, Guarini, has just visited Ankara. And there again, apparently, he has tried to mediate between the Greek and the Turkish position. So Italy has a lesser, apart from economic reasons, interest in getting more tensions in that region and still they have some ships in this maneuver that just started. Yanis, anything to add on Italy before I transition to France? Quite a few interesting details. Italian vessels participated in Greek and Turkish military maneuvers in the

the eastern mediterranean at the same time so they're trying to keep a very fine balance on this in this difficult situation as jan already said italy's and turkey's positions in libya are quite close so they seem to be supporting the same side so this is another parameter that informs italy's position italy doesn't want to provoke turkey in that respect and let me add another important dimension. It was an Italian company that had the license to drill in a natural gas field south of Cyprus, like about a year or so ago. But at the presence of Turkish military vessels, the Italian company decided to cancel the whole operation. And I think that this was definitely a move that was endorsed by the Italian foreign ministry. So unlike France,

I think France's relationship with Turkey, which we will discuss now, is more complicated and goes beyond the Eastern Mediterranean. Italy is not willing to take risks in its relationship with Turkey, while, of course, remaining an EU member state and following what the Council will decide on Turkey. So I don't think that it will be actively protecting Turkey in the EU Council level. But on the other hand, it won't be provoking Turkey like maybe France is doing. So let's talk about France and what are the French doing? They've been very vocal in their support for Greece. What military aid do they provide and what's their rationale for doing so? So there are quite a few reasons for this. I think that France has always been the EU member state with the most ambitious foreign policy and strategic agenda. and this also encapsulates the Mediterranean. France itself is a Mediterranean country, right?

Of course, it's dominant in the Western Mediterranean, but it could understand itself as having interest in the Eastern Mediterranean too. And of course, following the Arab uprisings and the situation with terrorism and sort of jihadism, like Western Europe became increasingly interested in the situation in Syria and Libya. And under these circumstances, is French-Turkish relations have started deteriorating. This deterioration is only reinforced

by the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean. So Turkey and France are on opposite sides in Sahel, sort of in Mali, in Niger. They have different opinions on a number of issues when it comes to foreign policy objectives in the Middle East. And I think personalities also play a role, like relations between the President Erdogan and President Macron appear to be quite poor. So under these circumstances, France appears to be willing to give the support that makes Greece and Cyprus more comfortable in their relationship with Turkey. And of course, besides this, there might be some very important and lucrative for France defense contracts.

So there is a big discussion that Greece is now planning to buy 18 Rafale aircraft, like last-generation, very high-tech French military aircraft. And there is also a discussion of buying two or four frigates. So boost the capacity of the Greek Navy. So this means lots of jobs in France as well. So this is a contract that actually should be even closer. Yeah, in my view, it is an expression as well what we see, that the French have lost influence in the Eastern Mediterranean, especially in the Syrian conflict.

And I think that much of the action there has to do as well as in regaining some of this. France had been active in Syria in the beginning of the conflict. the conflict now as Assad, with much help of Russia, is on the winning side, there's nothing to gain in Syria anymore. I see, for example, Macron's visit in Beirut just recently, and he was the first one to travel there, was as well a sign France is back in the region. And of course, the engagement in Greece and Cyprus would as well be a symbol of regaining some significance in the eastern Mediterranean. I think that is part of the answer

to me. I think it's important to remember because we keep on talking about EU-Turkey relations and whether Turkey is part of Europe or not. When the European Economic Community was established, Algeria was part of the European Economic Community as well.

So, of course, this put France's Mediterranean identity into a much clearer way, but it is important to stress here that France tries, unlike Germany, which of course in the post-war

German national identity this sort of assertive foreign policy or this sort of use of military might appears to be a sort of a taboo. France has no such taboos and France increasingly felt

uncomfortable with Turkey's increasing in a number of regions and the Mediterranean is one of the regions where Turkey kind of fills a gap that France considered that it should have filled itself. Thank you. So let's keep walking around the Mediterranean here in Egypt and Israel. You mentioned Egypt and Israel already, but they both found themselves on the side of the Greeks here. What are their interests and what support are they providing?

Yanis, we'll start with you. Yes, this is one of the most interesting developments of the last years. But I would argue that this is less a success of Greek foreign policy And more of a failure of Turkish foreign policy When it came to alienating both countries in a very profound way Greece, Turkey and Israel used to have a sort of very strong Defense and political cooperation in the 1990s Which continued in the first years of the Erdogan administration

But there was this crucial moment, this one-minute confrontation in Davos between Shimon Peres and Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Mavi Marmara incident some months later that led to a sharp deterioration of Israeli-Turkish relations. And, of course, this became even more pronounced with the rise of the Netanyahu government. So Netanyahu has been a clear opponent of Israeli-Turkish rapprochement, no matter how high the stakes and the risks of this confrontation are for both countries. And of course, the Turkish president has been always very vocal in supporting the Palestinians and even the Hamas group within the Palestinian movement. So let's say the more radical voices within the Palestinian movement have always found strong support by Turkey. The situation in Egypt is even more interesting, in my view, because when the Arab uprising took place, the rise of the Mursi government, the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt, gave Turkey and the Turkish government the hope that Turkey and Egypt would become like brother states. They were very close ideological bonds between the Morsi government in Egypt and the Tayyip Erdogan government in Ankara. However, when the coup happened in Egypt that overthrew the government of Morsi and brought Sisi to power,

However, this was treated as an anathema by the Turkish government and a very ominous development for what could happen in Turkey as well. So in a sense, it's raised insecurity and fear within the Turkish government and relations between the new Sisi regime and Ankara came to zero. And they are very close to zero right now. So Turkey and Egypt are against each other in all ways, like in Libya, in all disputes of the Middle East. And this confrontation is more ideological and sort of religious oriented, as well as political. So from that point of view, it was easier for the Greek foreign policy, for the Greek diplomacy to build bridges towards both countries and see common ways of cooperation. And as you, the agreement between Egypt and Libya, sorry, Egypt and Greece is a very good example, because had relations between Turkey and Egypt not been so awful, one could have imagined that Turkey could have tried to bring Egypt into that agreement. And that could have left Greece in a very difficult position, because as the Turkish foreign minister actually claimed in one of their statements, that we were offering Egypt more exclusive economic zone, of course, what Greece considers to be its own exclusive economic zone, right? So, had Egypt agreed with us, it could have gotten a bigger chunk of Eastern Mediterranean compared to what Greece is willing to give it. However, Egypt agreed to follow the UNCLOS rules and sign an agreement with Greece, even getting a smaller piece of the Eastern Mediterranean Exclusive Economic Zone. So, this tells us a lot, I think, about how relations between Egypt and Turkey are today.

Thank you, Jan. Did you have anything to add on Egypt and Israel? Otherwise, I'm going to ask you about the EU and where they are on this. Very, very shortly, because it's interesting. In January 2019, the energy ministers of Egypt, Cyprus, Israel, Italy, Jordan, and the Palestinian authorities have met in Cairo. They discussed the establishment of the Mediterranean gas portal. And guess who was not there? Turkey, Lebanon, and Syria. So this is exactly the result of what we just heard from him.

Thank you. I'd like to talk then about the EU's role in this, because the EU actually commissioned the map study that defined the maritime boundaries in the early 2000s. I think it was at the University of Seville actually did the map study. So Greece is also an EU member state. Has the EU been supportive of Greece? And is Turkey, which at one point was trying to gain entry, I think the two of you mentioned earlier, do they care about the EU's opinion on this? Jan, I'm going to ask. That is indeed a very interesting question, because officially, it's very clear in all official statements from Brussels you hear, we support

the Greek and Cyprus position. If you look at what is actually happening, then they just fall short on opposing any kind of sanctions. And if you look what individual ministers from member countries so far, including the foreign minister of my country, trying to do with Greece and Cyprus, doesn't look like total support. It rather smells like mediation between the Greek and the Turkish position.

And so I don't see that the EU is really fully supporting the Greek and the Soviet position, but rather trying to mediate, which is somehow contradictory, obviously. Either you fully support something or you don't, but the statements are rather contradictory. France, for once, as we discussed, is supporting these positions. Italy is lukewarm, as we heard. Germany is trying to negotiate in the middle. Yeah. And, you know, the president of the commission is from Germany as well. And I didn't hear any strong statements from her either. So I think this is EU's position. It has none. Janusz, did you want to add to that?

Yes, I think we need to remember that although the European Union is an economic giant and the biggest trade player in the world today, it still remains very underdeveloped when it comes to foreign and security policy issues. So, of course, there is a principle of solidarity. There is a principle of sort of support for member states when they come into sort of a security challenge. And I think we need to distinguish two different situations that we have in front of us right now. Why do we have a crisis right now? Because Turkey decided to send a vessel that contacts exploratory activities within a sea zone that Greece considers to be part of its own exclusive economic zone, and Turkey considers to be part of its own exclusive economic zone. Of course, Greece doesn't want Turkey to create some fait accompli there,

To be clear that, you know, I conducted exploration, so I proved that this is what I can only do. So this is why Greece sends vessels. So the escalating here is the first issue. So how to make sure that all the vessels go. So what the Greek position here would be, and that's something that would be easier to sell to the European authorities, is that let these explorations end and we come back to the peaceful state of affairs. But then, of course, there's still an issue.

So the dispute is still there. But then we need to agree on how to solve the dispute. And then the official Greek position that has also been communicated to the European institutions is that we try to negotiate with the Turkish side. And if we fail to agree, we'll bring the issue to the court, which is something that should have happened many years ago, in fact, as we've discussed before. So the situation is that right now there is a lot of mistrust between

the Greek and Turkish government. And the perception of Turkey that the EU is fully on the Greek side doesn't help. This is why NATO got involved into this. Or this is why Germany may have a bigger influence in achieving a de-escalation compared to France. Because whatever France says now, Turkey will not listen to, given the circumstances. So we may be witnessing a situation whereby France and Germany are becoming complementary to each other and not sort of really sort of contravening each other because they may be performing different functions within the European foreign policy. Thanks.

Now you brought up NATO. So let me ask you, what has NATO's position been? I know that the NATO Secretary General spoke with Turkey's foreign minister August 19th. But since then, I think we've seen Secretary Stoltenberg come out a little bit more forcefully about not intervening from a military state, but assisting with negotiations. There were some statements by the NATO Secretary General a couple of days ago that attracted a lot of attention. This became another reason for confrontation between Greece and Turkey because Turkey appeared to support this, while the Greek government appeared to be ambivalent on this. And the reason for the ambivalence was that the Greek government appeared willing to discuss with Turkey, but only after the vessel departed from this disputed area.

So Greece doesn't want to appear negotiating under pressure. So they want the sea to be calm again, so the theater of confrontation to become normalized, and then negotiations to start. So, it appeared in the Greek point of view that the NATO Secretary General did not make this clear. So, it appeared that the exploration by the Turkish vessels would continue and negotiations would take place, which is something Greece doesn't want to happen because this would appear as if Greece is conceding to Turkey on the question of who has the right to explore in that region. But as I said before, NATO remains a very valuable tool in reducing tension and bringing about the escalation of the region, not least because it is the alliance where both countries are part of. And this is an organization that values more Greek-Turkish cooperation. It has to suffer most if this crisis leads to an accident or sort of a short-term military confrontation. So NATO should be very much interested in resolving this conflict sooner than later. Thanks, Jan. Do you have anything to add on NATO?

Otherwise, I'm going to ask you about Germany's, appears to be a more active role for Germany in the future here. I would actually just like to say not so much about NATO, but about NATO's most important member. Arguably, this is the United States of America. And very interestingly, we don't hear much. As we had these maneuvers, these French, Italian, Greeks, and Cyprus units drilling with each other, at the very same time, there was a USS Winston Churchill making drills together with the Turkish Navy. Of course, this was not a political signal, but we see this kind of silence on behalf of the U.S. basically underlining that there will be no pressure from this side to do anything neither

officially nor through NATO channels. That explains as well why NATO doesn't really have a common opinion here. With respect to your question on Germany, yes of course Germany Germany is trying to negotiate, but that's everything Germany can do at this point. Germany can't really pressure any of the partners, but what Germany probably did in Brussels was to stop any questioning of stronger sanctions against Turkey at this point in in order not to endanger negotiations that Germany hopes to initiate. How far they can go with that is, of course, a different question we can't answer today. But that is clearly the German position.

So all this strife, which we've documented, involves at least four different NATO members. It would seem to benefit Russia, which with its naval base in Tartu, Syria, also has some interests in this region. What, if anything, are the Russians doing, or are they just kind of observing? I think, well, the official position of Russia is that they, of course, would like to help both sides to come to terms with each other. But everything we know about Russia is that any strife between two NATO countries is good news. So surely it is in the interest of Russia that this conflict is not going away easily. But I can't see that at the moment they are doing anything to influence this conflict. But it's very, very clear that it is Russian policy to divide NATO members and EU members.

And this is a wonderful theater for their wishes. but I don't see them at the moment to play any active role in this. To follow up on Jan's point, let me add first something on Germany. I think it's important to remember that unlike France, Germany has a deeper and more comprehensive relationship with Turkey. It hosts a very large German-Turkish community. Its trade with Turkey is much bigger and much more significant compared to the Turkey-France trade.

and of course Germany has been directly involved in the refugee migration question so Turkey is an important player and an important interlocutor in that respect so it's very important for Germany to maintain a talking relationship

with Turkey before bringing things to sanctions so this is something we need to remember when it comes to Russia I would concur with what Jan said and add a couple of more important points Russia is the country that exports huge quantities of natural gas both to the European Union and Turkey

and I would consider that the development the monetization of Eastern Mediterranean natural gas and here I don't talk about only Cypriot, Egyptian, Israeli gas so finding a way to bring this gas to the international markets would reduce Europe's or Turkey's dependency on Russia So in that respect, anything that makes the monetization of Eastern Mediterranean natural gas more difficult or impossible, and that's where we're getting to with this crisis right now, because under the current COVID-19 circumstances, with energy prices being so low, embarking on such an expensive project that is monetizing Eastern Mediterranean gas would be very, very difficult. Like even companies that declared interest in this investment appear less willing to engage now because of the circumstances. And not least of the problems they have is also the European Union's decision to move to a post-carbon economy.

So there's a very limited window of opportunity for monetization to happen. And if this conflict goes on for some more years, then there will be nothing to debate about because nobody will be interested in Eastern Mediterranean natural gas anymore. Thank you. So I'll circle back to the question that we avoided earlier now about where the naval forces stand and just where do we stand right now with the Turkish and Greece navies? Both of them still have their forces at sea and what's happening? Jan, I'll ask you first. Well, as I already mentioned, there is at the moment this drill between Cyprus, Greece, France, and Italy. At the same time, we have this drill between some Turkish naval ships and the USS Winston Churchill, which is basically a routine drill. So it might be just a coincidence, but it's an interesting coincidence nevertheless.

So, forces are stationed, even so, at the moment, they are not, I mean, foreign forces like France and Italian forces are not permanently stationed or something on Cyprus, even so now we have French planes on Cyprus soil. So there is some military build-up, but it is not really a build-up for a bigger conflict or anything like that. It's basically that you have more routine visits of naval forces in the region. And of course, they have the potential to be dangerous if something unintended happens. But at the moment, I don't see that there is a bigger and a constant build-up. Even so, having said that, it was just yesterday announced that Turkey is having a new big maneuver between Turkey and northern Cyprus, involving forces basically as well in making drills to reinforce Turkish troops on Cyprus. This is, of course, a rather political signal,

Because in recent years, there were not so big maneuvers there in order to give a positive signal in terms of negotiations. This is now all gone. So as well, this will not help getting the sites in Cyprus to the negotiation table again. Janis, before I come to you, I just wanted to add a word on sort of naval drills. Those are normally not short notice events. they're planned months and sometimes years in advance. I would give the example in 2008, I was an exchange officer on the German frigate Lubeck, and we went into the Black Sea the week after the Russia-Georgia war happened. And this was interpreted as some sort of NATO political

signal in Russia, when in fact that deployment and our entry into the Black Sea had been planned six months to a year in advance. It was in German newspapers and everything when we departed on deployment months beforehand. And again, it was interpreted by Russia as, ah, NATO is sticking its nose in where it doesn't belong. And the moment that we crossed over, left the Dardanelles into the Black Sea, there was a Russian trawler waiting to meet us like it was 1986 at the height of the Cold War and trailed us around the Black Sea. That these events are happening, I think, is coincidental, or that the drills are happening, I think, is in large part coincidental. There can be some that are politically motivated, but I think that's a matter of interpretation

and not necessarily a political signal that, you know, Winston Churchill happens to be working with the Turks. Those are planned months in advance. But, Yanis, you had some points here, please. Well, basically, I agree with you. The big difference is that the U.S.-Turkish maneuver was not commented by politicians. Of course, the other maneuver we see at the moment with French and Italian ships, it's exactly the same. That was planned long ago.

But, of course, if this is now used by politicians to make statements, then, of course, you attach a completely different angle to it. And it's, of course, not a surprise that, yes, you are right, the U.S. is not sending any signal and there's no political intentions. If you look at Turkish newspapers, they draw that line, of course, at the moment and say the U.S. is helping us and drilling together with our voice and so on and so on. So, of course, this is used. Even so, I agree with you, this planned wrong ahead and there was no direct connection to what is happening at the moment on the political level. Let me add a couple of points on the issues raised by Jan. I think it's important to distinguish two different things. Of course, there are the planned military drills in the region,

but there are those that are very short-term announced by both sides. And that's what we've been witnessing in the last weeks. So a military drill is ending, and then one hopes that this will lead to de-escalation. And then Turkey issues another NAVTEX declaring that there will be another drill. And then Greece reciprocates by issuing another NAVTEX that brings the Greek Navy next to the Turkish Navy in the region. And at the same time, there is the Oruç Reis, the Turkish vessel conducting exploratory activities that the Greek Navy is trying to sort of, I wouldn't say intercept, but kind of make its life more difficult. But then this brings Turkish vessels as well. And this is where the accident happened, apparently, in early August.

Because the exploratory vessel continues its operations. The Greek Navy tries to obstruct. And then the Turkish Navy tries to obstruct. The Greek Navy tries to obstruct the Turkish vessel. And that's where the risk for the accident really lies. I don't think that the military deals themselves are the biggest risk here, but rather this unfortunate situation with the explorations. To add to what Jan said about Cyprus, I think it's important to remember that there are elections in the north of the country. The Turkish Cypriots are electing their president in early October.

So all this escalation and all this military presence of Turkey in the north is also giving a message towards the Turkish Cypriot community. And here it's important to highlight that the current president of a Turkish Cypriot is considered to be a moderate pro-conflict resolution figure who is not particularly liked by the hulks in Ankara. So there is a more Turkish nationalist candidate who is trying to beat him in the upcoming presidential elections. And one can only speculate that these military operations may have sort of also an effect on elections in the northern part of Cyprus. Thanks, Yanis. I'm going to come back to you for our final question. And it's what's the likely resolution mechanism here if it's not unclosed? Because none of the organizations that we have mentioned as our arbiters seem terribly likely as options. Yes, yes. I do think that what we need to follow a step by step approach on this first to remove the source of a potential accident,

which is this exploration activities this will bring the removal of the naval forces and the end of the military drills in the region and then the two sides should engage in dialogue and there were some exploratory talks between greece and turkey on the question of the delineation of their maritime borders they were going on throughout the 2000s and all the way to 2016 and they were interrupted at that point so resuming this exploratory talks would be a very good idea and of course in my view what was suggested as a solution already in the early 2000s could be the best way forward so the two sides try to agree on a solution like greece and egypt or greece and italy did but if they fail to do so they can agree to bring the issue to the international

a court of justice and that would bring a sort of a solution that would be in accordance with international legal principles and it would pave the ground for a win-win solution for all countries in the region

whereby the natural resources of the Eastern Mediterranean can be best monetized and peace and stability in the region can be improved. Of course, in that respect resolving the South East issue would be of major significance. Jan mentioned the biggest opportunity for resolving the Cyprus problem in 2004. Three years ago in Kralmontana, Switzerland, there was another very important negotiation

process that came very close to the conclusion and failed. I do know that the United Nations remains committed to a peaceful, comprehensive, bi-zonal, bi-communal, federal solution in Cyprus, So, in my view, it could be to the interest of all parties, and most, of course, Cypriots, and regional stability in the Eastern Mediterranean if the Cyprus peace negotiations were resumed sooner than later. Thanks. And, Jana, final thought from you on the same topic? Yeah, I basically agree that the best solution would be an agreement between Greece and Turkey, and they should resume this negotiation. I wouldn't because I'm a little bit more pessimistic about a possibility of getting any solution on Cyprus soon. So I would rather hope that this would be disconnected from each other. But the question is, how can we bring Greece and Turkey to renegotiate or to restart negotiations on this matter?

And as I said, I feel we need more diplomacy and more silent pressure on them. And as we discussed before, Germany can play a role here. But I would like to see some more engagement from the side of the United States as well, who has some leverage from those countries. So there needs to be some guidance to both sides to encourage them to engage in these negotiations again. And that is my biggest hope I have. Well, gentlemen, this has been tremendous, but that is unfortunately all the time that we have for today. I'd like to thank my guests, Dr. Jan Asmussen and Dr. Yanis Grigoriadis.

Jan, where can we find you online and what are you working on next? You can find me easily on the homepage of the Institute of Social Science at Keele University. And, yeah, I just concluded a study on naval hybrid warfare for the U.S. Naval War College. And I hope it's going to come out soon. Corona has paused this a little bit, but it's done. And it's, as I told you, it's already used in class. And yeah, I will continue to work in this direction. Thank you.

And maybe we'll be speaking again in the near future once I see that. Jan, the same question to you. Where can we find you online and what projects are you working on? Well, you can find me on the websites of Bilking University, on EliaMap and on Academia and ResearchGate, where I publish all my academic articles and samples of my books. I have recently completed a chapter on Greek-Turkish relations for the Oxford Humble Call on Greek Politics.

So that's a project that's very relevant to what we've been discussing here. And I've also been conducting a lot of research on Turkish foreign policy and EU-Turkey relations, and this work is available on the websites that I've mentioned. Excellent. Well, gentlemen, thank you both for coming on again. To our listeners, thank you for tuning in. We'll see you next time. Sea Control is produced by Keegan Ingersoll. Help me, Boban, pull in the alley. Way, hey, pull in the alley. Help me, Boban, pull in the alley.

Pull it out of the shimbo now. A porter of a porter, dear, oh. Way, hey, pull in the alley. A porter of white, of white and red, oh. Pull it out of the shimbo now. So help me, Boban, pull in the alley. We'll be right back.