Earlier this week Turkey announced that its newest drill ship would set sail August 9th for a drilling operation “in the Mediterranean,” setting the stage for an escalation of tensions should the ship deploy to an area that falls within Greece or Cyprus’s EEZs. The announcement comes as Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu also upped the ante with Athens again this week, issuing a barrage of heated rhetoric against Greece. Despite the harsh and provocative rhetoric coming out of Ankara and the threat of tensions in the Mediterranean next month, Greece and Cyprus are working to keep tensions low. Endy Zemenides, HALC’s Executive Director, joins Thanos Davelis to look at Turkey’s increasingly revisionist and aggressive stance vis-a-vis Greece and Cyprus and what steps can be taken to make it clear that Ankara’s actions are unacceptable.

Read Endy Zemenides’ latest interview with The Greek Reporter here: Friend or Foe? How US Perceptions of Turkey Have Shifted

You can read the articles we discuss on our podcast here:

Greece and Cyprus ‘keeping the tone down’ in East Med tension

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New barrage of Turkish accusations

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Security Council extends Unficyp mandate