Turkey must drop war threat to join SAFE, Greek PM tells NATO chief | Euractiv

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte that Turkey must abandon its opposition to Athens’ right under international law to expand its territorial waters if it wants Greece to lift its veto on Ankara’s participation in the EU’s SAFE programme.

“As long as Turkey maintains the casus belli – the threat of war – and continues to directly challenge the sovereignty of Greek islands, Greece will not consent to Turkey joining the SAFE programme,” Mitsotakis said during a meeting with Rutte in Copenhagen.

The SAFE instrument is composed of €150 billion in defence loans that 19 EU countries successfully applied for. The regulation underpinning it creates a preference for procurement from EU, Norwegian, and Ukrainian defence manufacturers, capping participation of third-countries to 35%.

Third-countries can apply to participate on a more preferential basis, and Turkey did so in September.

The tension between Ankara and Athens in the Aegean centres on the right of coastal states to extend their territorial waters up to 12 nautical miles, as established under international maritime law (UNCLOS). Greece currently claims six nautical miles in the Aegean Sea, but reserves the right to double this to the 12 mile limit. However, in 1995, the Turkish Parliament declared that any Greek extension to 12 nautical miles would be considered a casus belli.

Ankara argues that such a move would severely limit Turkey’s access to international waters in the Aegean – a region densely populated with Greek islands near the Turkish coast.

The dispute over territorial waters is just one of several longstanding issues between the two NATO allies, and it has often posed challenges for alliance unity and cohesion.

(cp)