Erdogan’s chaotic ‘Blue Homeland’ strategy – Where is it going, how is Athens reacting

By Antonis Anzoletou

The answer to the question “which of Erdogan’s threats should Greece consider more” is not simple. After all, the range of aggressive rhetoric of the Turkish president is wide: “Blue Homeland”, casus belli for the possibility of expanding territorial waters in the Aegean, recognition of the pseudo-state, demilitarization of the Greek islands by questioning their sovereignty, the sharing of its mineral resources of the Aegean, Greece that does not respect immigrants and of course the latest alarming story about “sudden night raids”. To all this should be added the Turkish-Libyan memorandum, the violations, the overflights, the missile launches with a range of the Greek capital and the warnings about the armament policy of Athens.

What is the objective of the Turkish strategy?

There are many analysts who agree that the central and basic “strategy” is the “Blue Homeland”. That is, the Aegean divided between Turkey, Greece and a multitude of Greek islands under Turkish cover. The aim is for this term to transcend the country’s borders and gain international status. And in Ankara they argue that this goal has been achieved to a large extent. What is the big problem? Greek-Turkish relations have dynamic characteristics. Every day either new issues arise or when there are none, Erdogan simply creates them. Even a simple fishing incident can be inflated by Ankara in order to highlight something in its favor. In any case, with the help of Bakhceli, the Turkish president retains a large part of his nationalist audience that he risks losing to Aksener and the Kemalist opposition. With an eye always on the elections…

From the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, top diplomatic sources answer every year with clarity to all this delirium. “The “neo-Ottoman shenanigans” are escalating as we approach the 2023 election, springboarding (and this is probably the most worrying) not only the self-interested pre-election methods of Erdogan and Bakhceli but also the “ultra-party” revisionist Turkish claims that also have be provocatively escalated.” The escalation is seen from the 2016 coup attempt onwards.

The bargain with the West continues

In this environment, Erdogan’s bargain with the West continues. The convenient external enemy is part of the power strategy and show of force he wants to show. In a highly volatile international environment with the ongoing war in Ukraine, the threats seem far from coming true. Nevertheless, the election fever in which the Turkish president and his ministers live cannot exclude anything. He expressed his strong displeasure with the new Greece-Egypt deal and is now expected to turn to other paths. Hurriyet wrote that the ship “Abdulhamit Khan” is in the port of Tasuju and is making preparations to start drilling in the Mediterranean Sea in the coming days. We have seen this play many times before. It is a fact that Greek-Turkish relations are largely determined by the level of Ankara’s contacts with the US. After all, it is the game that has opened wide and dangerous at the same time. Now it has expanded again into Syria and many analysts say that what Erdogan wants to achieve with the operations against the Kurds is “finally a victory”.

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