Turkey & Greece Announced Calling off the Rival Naval Exercises as Oil Tension Rise Further

Turkey and Greece announced conducting the Rival Naval exercises off Crete’s Greek Island on Tuesday. The announcement was made amid the rising tensions between the two States over the claims of Eastern Mediterranean’s gas and oil.

The official warning came out of Turkey for other vessels to avoid the marked area, and Turkey also announced extending a mission with the help of a seismic research ship. After this, Greece declared its exercises too.

To help reduce the tension, the Germany’s foreign minister Heiko Maas will arrive at Athens and Ankara on Tuesday. Later, he will meet Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Greek Prime Minister, before moving on to Ankara for the discussion with the Turkish counterparts.

Greece and Turkey are both the members of Nato; They are in dispute over Oil and Gas deposits’ discovery in the region of the disputed waters off Crete and Cyprus. The European Union, Greece, called for the significant dialogues. Still, France, which has been involved with the European Union in the naval exercises recently, appeared siding with them for the same.

On Monday, Turkey announced extending the explorations by the Oruc Reis research vessel in the disputed waters by four days, hence extending till 27th August 2020. This influenced Greece, considering the survey and signaling the naval exercises as unlawful. 

Also, Stelios Petsas, a spokesperson of the Greek government, stated that they are calmly and readily responding on the operational and diplomatic levels. Also, with the growing national confidence, Greek is doing everything to defend its sovereign rights.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated that Turkey is moving forward and will not step back in any situation. They will not move back from either the escorting of naval elements or the Oruc Reis. He then added that Greek entered into chaos itself from which it has no way for coming out.

Last month, with Ankara issuing Navtex, a similar sort of advisory, issuing a warning for their research ship’s presence, Athens too reacted furiously in the matter.

Earlier in August 2020, Greek also signed a deal with Egypt for the maritime border, declaring some exclusive zones of economic activities. However, the deal interfered with another agreement signed between the Tripoli’s Libyan government recognized by the UN, and Turkey.

The matters got complicated with the statement from the Greek officials on Friday that UAE (United Arab Emirates) will soon send the fighter jets (F-16) to Crete for some joint training.

From the past few decades, the relations between Greece and Turkey impaired many times due to the disputes over the Aegean Islands. With each discussion, the tension between them escalated, creating more chaos.