When the earthquake hit Turkey in February 2023, Greece was the first to send help. A genuine thaw came out of it - in December that year the two countries signed the Athens Declaration on Friendship and Good Neighbourly Relations. Three years on, the trigger for fresh tension is something that on paper sounds like environmental news: marine parks.

On 15 August Turkey declared two marine parks. One in the north-east Aegean, in the waters between the Greek islands of Limnos and Samothrace. The other east of Rhodes, taking in the Greek island of Kastellorizo. The Greek foreign ministry reacted immediately, calling the declaration unlawful and stating that such a move in areas outside Turkish territorial waters has no legal effect.

Protecting nature, or mapping power

A year earlier Greece announced two marine parks of its own - in the Ionian and the Cyclades. The difference Athens insists on is that those lie inside its territorial waters. Turkey said at the time that in closed or semi-closed seas, as the Aegean is, unilateral measures should be avoided. And now it has done exactly that itself, without any prior agreement.

So within one year two countries declared two marine parks each in the same sea, never once agreed anything between them, and both invoke the protection of nature while doing it. The Mediterranean is ecologically fragile - nobody disputes that. But it is hard not to notice that when protection is declared unilaterally and precisely where the dispute is fiercest, it becomes a tool for drawing borders in more palatable vocabulary.

"Blue Homeland"

Athens fears the declaration is part of the Turkish revisionist doctrine "Mavi Vatan" - "Blue Homeland" in Turkish. Under that doctrine Turkey lays claim to the exclusive economic zones of Greece and Cyprus and contests sovereignty over numerous Greek islands. Until now it was largely a theoretical and strategic matter. Now, through legislative initiatives in the Turkish parliament, it is seeking legal form as well.

Greece, content with the status quo in the Aegean, feels threatened by a militarily far better armed Turkey. So it is investing heavily in fighter jets, frigates, submarines and air defence systems. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), between 2021 and 2025 Greece ranked 19th in the world among the largest importers of major weapons systems.

This concerns us directly. We share a border with Greece, we travel through it, we holiday in it, and a good share of the goods entering our country passes through its ports. Every arms build-up and every escalation in the Aegean happens a few hundred kilometres from our southern border, not on another continent.

Alliances built against a neighbour

Every time Athens forms new alliances or reinforces existing ones, the Turkish factor plays a part. In 2021 the Greek government, despite opposition objections, sent Patriot missile systems to Saudi Arabia to protect refineries - at a time when the Saudis were in political conflict with Ankara. During the Saudi crown prince's visit, Prime Minister Mitsotakis spoke explicitly of Turkey's destabilising and counterproductive role.

Relations between Ankara and Riyadh have since improved. On 7 August this year Turkey, together with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, signed the Mecca Defence Pact. The Balkans know this scene by heart: the alliance you count on today sits on the other side of the table tomorrow.

Greece meanwhile has built strategic cooperation with Israel. Despite criticism within Greece over the humanitarian situation in Gaza, Mitsotakis continues to cultivate close relations with Netanyahu. The Greek defence ministry is planning a defence shield over the Aegean modelled on Israel's Iron Dome. The project is called the Achilles Shield and is meant to be fully operational from 2029.

For now Mitsotakis is trying to keep a conciliatory tone. But new parliamentary elections are due in Greece in spring 2027. The closer they get, the greater the temptation to sharpen the rhetoric towards Turkey.

And that is the part least mentioned when geopolitics is discussed. Marine parks, doctrines and frigates are not only drawn on a map - they are drawn into an electoral calendar too. The question is how long a conciliatory tone can hold out against an election date.