Over the past six months, the near-zero violation of Athens’ national airspace and air traffic responsibility area (FIR) has often led to the misinterpretation of Ankara’s “freezing” of its fixed views on the Aegean.
“K” today brings to the surface some incidents of the last semester which at the bureaucratic level (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and competent military authorities) led to an exchange not only of instructions to shippers in air and sea (NOTAM and NAVTEX), but also to three strict warnings by Turkey for exercises and activities of the Greek Armed Forces within areas of its responsibility of Athens. As “K” had timely pointed out, Turkey’s return to the diplomatic “paper war” began to be recorded just before Christmas last year.
For the flights
Specifically, according to documents known to “K”, on November 21, 2023, Ankara accused Greece (in a verbal communication delivered to the Greek ambassador) that two Turkish aircraft were intercepted by Greek fighters. The Greek side replied that the fighter jets simply proceeded to recognize Turkish aircraft which, as a regular practice, were operating in an area within the Athens FIR without filing a flight plan. It is interesting that on that date the Greek side has recorded only violations of air traffic rules not by Turkish fighters, but by naval cooperation aircraft of type ATR-72 and CN-235 and a UAV, in the Southeast Aegean.
A second pass was served on the Greek side in February, where a list recorded a total of seven cases of alleged violation of Turkish airspace. In four of these cases, the Turks denounced the Greek aircraft while they were flying within national airspace. In the first case 2.5 nautical miles southeast of Kalolimnos, and in the remaining three cases 2.5 nautical miles. until 3 p.m. southeast of Samos, in fact, last January.
The third strict The event involved exercises, both military and activities of the Greek Police and the Coast Guard, in areas from Evros to Kastellorizo, where all of Ankara’s positions were formulated. Among the cases highlighted by the Turks are of course the regime of supposed demilitarization of the islands of the Eastern and Northern Aegean (namely Leros, Kos, Samos, Ikaria, Kalymnos, Lipsi, Patmos, Nisyros, Limnos, Samothraki, Lesvos, Chios, Rhodes, Karpathos , Kastellorizo, Tilos, Chalki, Nisyros, Psara, Agios Efstratios). And these objections were registered on the occasion of a series of exercises of the Greek Armed Forces, in this case the Navy (PN), such as “Triaena”.
The Turkish side even retaliated for two CAA NOTAMs with which they reserved an area over Thrace for Army UAV test flights.
In all the relevant claims of the Turkish side, the Papoulia-Yilmaz memorandum was invoked, which, of course, as is known, does not include areas outside the Aegean, as well as non-military activities, that is, of the Coast Guard and the Police. The Turks, for example, expressed their displeasure over two NOTAMs (A3832/23 and A4559/23) with which the Greek Civil Aviation Service (CAA) reserved an area over Thrace for UAV flight tests on behalf of the 4th Army Corps of the Army.
In short, Ankara questioned the ability of Athens to reserve space for flights over national territory. It is worth noting that in a very close distance, in Eastern Thrace, there is a large concentration of Turkish Bayraktar type UAVs, which are used for intelligence gathering missions, therefore the Greek decision to gradually develop similar capabilities on the eastern side of the Evros is in fact a countermeasure .
In a NATO exercise
Last December and January the Turks even reacted to the joint exercise which was carried out by Air Force (PA) aircraft with NATO fighters, as part of airspace policing missions of member states of the North Atlantic Treaty and fully integrated into the Alliance’s routine. The Turks also returned to the issue of the area they claim as the Terminal Control Area for the airport of Dalaman, in the province of Mugla, in the Kerameic Gulf, opposite Rhodes.
According to the Turkish protests, the way the Athens FIR is configured causes problems for the air traffic of this small airport which mainly serves tourist traffic on the south-western coast of Asia Minor. Obviously, this is not the case, while, in addition, part of the airport is still used by the Turkish Air Force, certainly not to the extent that this was the case before 2000.
In all these cases, the responsible Greek-Turkish department (A4) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and of course the Greek embassy in Ankara, responded in the appropriate way. However, in a broader context, several experienced diplomats are wondering how much longer this sterile expression of opinions can continue, without, in fact, any progress.
It is now clear from the way the talks are going that both Athens and Ankara are satisfied (to varying degrees) with the current lack of tension on the ground. However, there are not a few in Athens who are worried that in the next phase Ankara will simply return to the claims, projecting the time it has allowed to pass without problems as a proof of goodwill. The intensity with which Ankara reacted and the importance it still attaches to the issue of marine parks in the Aegean Sea announced by Athens, even threatening to not allow them, are indicative of the way in which the Turkish government approaches the current phase in Greek-Turkish.
Normally the contacts
However, the scheduled contacts have not been rescheduled. Last week, unit commanders from the Greek and Turkish sides of the Evros visited camps on the opposite bank, as part of the Confidence Building Measures (CBM). The main discussions on the MOUs will take place tomorrow in Athens, and next week the contacts within the framework of the positive agenda will follow. The meeting of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis with the President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara will finally take place on May 13. It is, in any case, interesting for Athens that the Mitsotakis-Erdogan meeting will be preceded, unexpectedly, by the visit of the President of Turkey to the White House, where he has a lot to discuss with US President Joe Biden.
