Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaking at the opening of the Diplomatic Forum in Antalya in April. Ankara’s move to codify its territorial claims in a ‘Blue Homeland bill’ are interpreted by Athens as targeting the domestic audience as well, as in recent months the opposition has accused the AKP government of having a hesitant stance toward Greece. [Umit Bektas/Reuters]
A Turkish government-leaked consultation paper referring to a so-called “Blue Homeland Law” that will presumably be voted on in Parliament in early June and a minor naval incident – the fourth of its kind this year – have left officials in Athens wondering whether Ankara wants to return to a strategy of tension like the one that prevailed between the two nominal allies before February 2023.
The “Blue Homeland Law” would codify Turkey’s claims to maritime economic zones in the Aegean Sea and the rest of the Eastern Mediterranean; it would also enshrine into law Turkish claims that there exist in the Aegean “gray zones” of disputed or undetermined sovereignty, something that Greece has steadfastly refused, referring to international treaties, including one signed between Turkey and Italy, which then occupied the Dodecanese islands, in 1932.
Turkey’s doctrine that islands cannot have a maritime zone of their own, or a continental shelf, are behind its claims to the resources of half the Aegean Sea, east of the midpoint between the European and Asian mainlands, and its signing, in 2019, of a memorandum with the Libyan administration in Tripoli, of a memorandum demarcating the maritime zones of the two countries.
Turkey and Libya do not share a common border; Greece and Egypt are between them.
Turkey’s sea claims go against the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, in force since 1994. Turkey has never ratified the convention.
Of course, domestic legislation does not engage any other international actors, although Turkey has officially presented its claims to the UN; which is why Greek officials say that the legislation targets mostly a domestic audience. Opposition parties in Turkey have accused President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose Islamist AKP party is supported in Parliament by the far-right nationalist MHP, of a soft approach to Greece on a series of issues. Thus the rush to push the revisionist agenda.
Greek officials have not commented on the content of the proposed legislation because they have not been officially notified.
On Wednesday, a Turkish gunboat contacted a merchant vessel, Ocean Link, which was laying a fiber optic cable on behalf of Greek telecom firm Cosmote, between the Greek islands of Astypalaia and Kos, notifying it that it would have to ask Turkey for permission before doing so.
Turkey and Greece often issue navigational warnings, often contradictory, covering a swath of the Aegean. On Wednesday, a Greek frigate responded promptly that the area Ocean Link was operating in is under Greek jurisdiction. The presence of several Greek Navy ships in the area, as part of a long-announced naval exercise, led the Turkish ship not to persist.