Greece re-issues permit for maritime research off eastern Crete; ignores Turkish saber-rattling

Greece ignored the latest round of Turkish provocations this month and on Wednesday issued a new NAVTEX for research activity by the Maltese-flagged “Nautical Geo”, and specifically in a sea region immediately to the east of the large Mediterranean island of Crete.

Earlier, the foreign ministry in Athens had instructed Greece’s ambassador to Turkey to deliver a demarche over the harassment of the same vessel by a Turkish warship in a sea region constituting an extension of Crete’s continental shelf and part of a future EEZ for Greece – given that islands factor in delimitating such zones, as per the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

Specifically on Wednesday, the Hellenic Navy’s hydrographic service again issued a permit for the vessel to continue research in the same sea region.

The commander of a Turkish frigate, sailing more than 140 kilometers from the nearest Turkish territory, contacted the vessel days ago, which was roughly 10 nautical miles from the eastern coast of Crete, and requested that it cease research activity and leave the area.

The incident was the most recent example of “Turkography” in the eastern Aegean, whereby Ankara repeatedly cites a baseless and outlandish delimitation agreement with the acting Libyan government in 2020. The latter essentially divided all waters between the two distant states, ignoring every inch of Greek island territory in the process, sans the six-mile territorial waters around each island.

Ankara then filed the “agreement” with the UN and subsequently claimed this action equals legitimacy, regardless of the fact that Turkey is neither a signatory nor even a de facto adherent to UNCLOS.

When contacted by the Turkish frigate, the master of the Nautical Geo countered that he was in Greek waters and had all the necessary permits from only internationally recognized authorities, which were the Greek ones.