Turkey conducted military exercises in the Mediterranean on Saturday which is expected to last for 2 weeks amidst heightened tensions between the former and Greece. Maritime border disputes, as well as gas drilling rights, have been causing trouble between the two countries as the neighbours have reignited this age-old rivalry by staging naval drills.
In a message on NAVTEX, the international maritime navigational telex system, Turkey said it would carry out “shooting exercises” from Saturday until September 11 in a zone off the southern Turkish town of Anamur, north of the island of Cyprus.
In the wake of this, Germany has intervened and has sought Turkey to withdraw its forces from the Mediterranean so as to diffuse the tension between the two countries. Germany’s Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, who is trying to mediate between the two countries, said the precondition for talks was an end to military manoeuvres. “For sure the parties will not sit down at the table when warships are facing each other in the eastern Mediterranean,” he said.
He added that the EU had “lost leverage over Turkey” since a botched military coup against the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in July 2016 accelerated a sharp downturn in relations. The EU strongly criticised Erdoğan’s crackdown against state employees and the media in the aftermath of the coup. Meanwhile, on paper Turkey remains an EU candidate country, but talks on accession and reform of its customs union with the bloc are in the deep freeze.