What Turkey is cookingwith missiles, maps and new claims, while escalating tension and strategic moves in the Eastern Mediterranean and Cyprus.
Angelos Syrigos intervenes on the Greece-Turkey, highlighting the latest developments that are shaping a particularly tense geopolitical scene in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean, with Turkey’s moves bringing to the forefront issues of maritime zones, military balance and strategic claims. In an environment of heightened tension and ongoing diplomatic processes, analyses around Greek-Turkish relations take on new importance, as they are linked both to regional power balances and to broader security developments in the Eastern Mediterranean.
On the occasion of a draft law being prepared by Turkey, a bill concerning the maritime zones in the Aegean Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean, and a number of other issues, he spoke to “Ja, But” with Evangelia Baltatzi and Dimitris Takis, Angelos Syrigos, Professor of International Law and Foreign Policy at Panteion University and Member of Parliament of the New Democracy.
Law with claims
Syrigos first said, “Five days ago it was announced that Turkey wants to build a missile which will have a speed of 25 Mach. The Russian missiles, which are considered top of the line at the moment, and the American missiles, have 12 to 14. And not only will you build the missile right now, but they have already found buyers from Germany to buy it. That is, the unlikelihood of the unlikelihood (…).”
And he added, “All the information we have is information that has been channelled to the press in order for Turkey to see what the reactions are (…). So everything that has been published so far is completely controlled by Turkey and the Turkish government has given it carefully filtered. This is the first one. The second: They are up to something. Usually what they usually do is that they put out, first they write some things, wait to see reactions and depending on the reactions, after some time they implement it. Now what has been bothering them? To understand why they come to this move. They are bothered by the presence of Greek missiles in Karpathos (…).”
At the same time, he added, “The second thing that has bothered them is all this mobility around Cyprus. Where are our F-16s or the two Greek warplanes, the French, the Italian, the Spanish warplanes that show that Cyprus, the free part of Cyprus is no longer considered as part of the Turkish security system, as it was a few years ago. It is something that belongs to Europe and Europe is prepared to keep it in the European zone of security and peace. And the third is certainly an internal matter. Erdogan wants something to sell at home, because he has not done particularly well with the current crisis. Missiles have been launched from Iran. Turkey could not intercept them because it has no anti-aircraft system. Turkey, which has good relations with Iran, tried to mediate. It was Pakistan that finally intervened. This whole thing has not gone well.”
Finally, Angelos Syrigos pointed out “The maritime spatial planning was done in 2025, Easter. Turkey produced maps in response to the maritime spatial planning, in June 2025 that is, the answer has been given. And when we declared the parks, Turkey declared some parks of its own. And it even had the feature that the parks were not in its territorial waters. They were on the high seas, which is prohibited. You can’t do anything on the open sea. So the answer is supposedly already given to our own maritime spatial planning and marine parks. Here I understand that they are trying to create a whole, to take all the claims they have against Greece and put it into a law (…).”
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