President Erdoğan’s latest message to Greece was clear: “Türkiye is not Greece’s enemy, but its neighbor and its ally under the NATO umbrella.” Speaking in New York on September 24, Erdoğan also stressed that relations between the two countries should not be used for electoral gain.
His words can be read as an olive branch extended to Athens. But they also carry a reminder: a sound alliance cannot be built by constantly portraying Türkiye as a threat, treating advances in its defense capabilities as a problem, and dismissing its objections in the Aegean.
Statements in recent weeks have once again exposed this contradiction. In early September, Erdoğan criticized the militarization of the islands, saying that Türkiye had no designs on anyone else’s territory but would not allow its own rights to be violated. Mitsotakis, meanwhile, pointed to the legal obstacles preventing Türkiye from acquiring F-35s. That relations remain mired in debates over arms purchases and military rivalry, even as Ankara stresses the importance of good neighborly ties, reveals the underlying problem.
For Türkiye, the issue is neither Greece’s existence nor its security. It is Athens’s approach to its own security, which rests on restricting Türkiye’s room for maneuver. Lasting peace in the Aegean requires a change in that approach.
International Law Cannot Apply Only to Türkiye
Greece invokes international law in almost every dispute with Türkiye. Yet the law is more than a means of asserting rights. It also entails obligations.
The military status of the islands is a case in point. Article 13 of the Treaty of Lausanne places restrictions on military forces and fortifications on Lesbos, Chios, Samos, and Ikaria. The 1947 Paris Peace Treaty, meanwhile, provides for the demilitarization of the Dodecanese. Türkiye’s objection is that Greece is violating its obligations under these treaties. Ankara’s position is therefore not simply an arbitrary demand it has devised after the fact.
Athens disputes this interpretation, but Türkiye’s question remains valid: why invoke treaty rights while disregarding the military restrictions laid down in those same treaties?
It is hardly surprising that military activity just off Türkiye’s coast should raise security concerns in Ankara. If Greece expects its own concerns to be taken seriously, it cannot automatically label Türkiye’s objections as aggression.
Another dimension of the Aegean disputes concerns the extent of national airspace and territorial waters. Greece claims ten nautical miles of national airspace despite having six nautical miles of territorial waters. Türkiye rejects that claim and objects to flights through the intervening zone being described as “violations.”
The prospect of Athens extending its territorial waters to twelve nautical miles is a separate red line for Ankara. Türkiye maintains that such a move would upset the balance in the Aegean to its detriment. A 1995 declaration by the Turkish parliament keeps all options, including military measures, on the table in response.
To attribute all these objections to Turkish expansionism is to obscure the legal and geographical foundations of the disputes. Türkiye’s defense of its rights off its own shores cannot simply be portrayed as hostility toward its neighbor.
The F-35 debate raises another question about what it means to be allies. Mitsotakis has said that it is not Greece’s place to tell the United States whom it can sell weapons to, while also stating that he does not see how the obstacles to Türkiye acquiring the aircraft could be overcome. The persistent tendency in Greek politics to frame Türkiye’s defense capabilities in terms of rivalry undermines both the alliance and relations between neighbors.
If Greece presents its own military buildup as the legitimate choice of a sovereign state, yet treats every advance in Türkiye’s defense capabilities as a problem, that approach deserves scrutiny. Membership in the same alliance does not give one country the right to regard its own security needs as legitimate and those of another as objectionable.
What is needed from Athens today is a serious commitment to its treaty obligations, recognition of Türkiye’s rights and security concerns, and a willingness to keep bilateral relations from becoming a tool of domestic political competition.
An alliance with Türkiye cannot endure if it is built on the pursuit of security at Türkiye’s expense.
