Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias gives a joint press conference with the Hungarian Foreign and Trade Minister after a meeting in Budapest on October 2, 2020. (ATTILA KISBENEDEK / AFP)

Greece is scaling up its diplomatic efforts to mobilize European Union partners against Turkey, as Ankara continues its controversial energy prospecting in contested waters in the eastern Mediterranean.

In a letter to his counterparts from Germany, Spain and Italy, Athens’s Foreign Minister Nikolaos Dendias charged Turkey with trying to create a “fait accompli” in the eastern Mediterranean through military means, according to a Greek diplomat.

In a letter to his counterparts from Germany, Spain and Italy, Athens’s Foreign Minister Nikolaos Dendias charged Turkey with trying to create a “fait accompli” in the eastern Mediterranean through military means, according to a Greek diplomat

Greece called on the three countries -- and particularly Germany -- to halt exports of military equipment to Turkey including submarines and frigates, said the diplomat, who asked not to be identified as the letters are not public.

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In a separate letter to European Commissioner for Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi, Dendias said Ankara has continued to violate the EU-Turkey customs union through new tariffs, legislation and other measures, according to the diplomat. Greece is seeking measures in response including the suspension of the union.

Disputed Waters

The Turkish survey vessel Oruc Reis has been conducting seismic surveys in waters contested with Greece in recent weeks. Greek media reported Tuesday that the ship sailed as close as 9 nautical miles (17 kilometers) from the island of Kastellorizo. 

Ankara had recalled the ship last month to allow for an attempt at dialog with Greece over territorial disputes, while warning that the vessel would return in the absence of progress.

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Greece maintains that islands must be taken into account in delineating a country’s continental shelf, in line with the United Nations Law of the Sea, which Turkey hasn’t signed. Ankara argues that a country’s continental shelf should be measured from its mainland, and that the area south of Kastellorizo -- just a few kilometers off Turkey’s southern coast -- falls within its exclusive economic zone.

“The best expression of European solidarity would be a European initiative, or possibly at the level of European member states, that would not allow the sale of weapons to Turkey which could be used to threaten sovereignty of EU member states,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said after an EU summit last week.

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