Greece sees Turkish threat to EU borders

Date: 08/01/1998

John Carr
Greek naval and air units are on the alert this month to counter what Athens views as an implicit Turkish security threat to the boundaries of Greece's far-flung Aegean island domain - and by extension, the EU's southern frontier.

The fresh tension, prompted by Turkish military manoeuvres in the area, comes a month after Ankara's pleas to be included in the EU accession negotiations to be launched in the spring were rebuffed at the Luxembourg summit.

The Turkish manoeuvres, dubbed Flexible Pincer and designed to discourage Greece from acting on its right to extend its territorial waters from six to 12 miles, are expected to grate on Greek official nerves until their scheduled termination on 25 January.

So far, both sides have refrained from risky tactics. Apparently acting on quiet advice from Washington, during the first week the Turkish Air Force studiously avoided what had been originally a key exercise area: the 19-mile gap between the Greek islands of Ikaria and Mykonos, which Greece claims as its exclusive airspace.

But any one of literally hundreds of disputed barren islets in the Aegean could become the focus of a showdown as Turkey probes Greek resolve in defending its sovereign rights.

The Athens government has so far shunned the temptation to rattle the sabre, with Greek officials simply portraying the manoeuvres as a piqued reaction by Turkey's generals to their EU rebuff, while emphasising the implicit threat to the Union's common frontier.

This frontier, however, has its disputed points. Apart from the islets issue, Greece claims a ten-mile airspace limit over its Aegean territory which is recognised neither by Turkey nor the US, nor NATO in general. The gap between that and the internationally acknowledged six-mile airspace limit is regularly used by Turkish warplanes to test Greek air defence and interception capabilities, accompanied by loud Greek charges of airspace "violations".

The main, yet unspoken, issue is whether Greece's modest military establishment is strong enough to defend the country's 1,450 Aegean islands along a 500-mile front from Samothrace to Rhodes without denuding other defence sectors. When a showdown over the islet of Imia was narrowly averted by American intervention in January 1996, Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis all but admitted that the military might not be up to the job.

As long as that capability is in doubt, Turkey can be expected to continue probing at Europe's shaky south-eastern corner.