Aegean Territorial Waters Conflict: An Evolutionary Narrative

Abstract

Delimitation of the territorial waters and continental shelf in the Aegean Sea constitutes a constant source of conflict and produces recurrent crises between Greece and Turkey. This article explores directions that the Greek-Turkish dispute over the delimitation of territorial waters can take through an evolutionary game framework. Crises are found to follow routines and practices involving challenges to the status quo and reactions preceding mutual retreat. Hence, the status quo in the Aegean Sea can persist even in the form of aggressive behavior. It is also possible that the dispute will evolve into a stable state of conflict where no cooperative foreign policy can survive.

Diversionary Politics and Territorial Disputes: Evidence from Turkish Airspace Incursions

“…Disagreement regarding the delimitation of territorial waters and the sovereignty rights over several islands is at the core of the territorial dispute between Greece and Turkey (Güner 2004;Bayar and Kotelis 2014). Whereas Greece is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which allows states to extend their territorial waters out to twelve miles, Turkey has not signed the agreement and maintains that territorial waters only reach out six miles from land (Güner 2004). Turkish vessels and airplanes thus regularly enter areas which Turkey understands to be internationally accessible or under Turkish sovereignty whereas Greece views them as part of its territory.…”

“…The dispute remains a salient issue for both countries Ifantis 2018) and, by continuation, in their domestic public opinion and the news media. The media has played a particularly active role in the escalation of the 1996 Imia/Kardak crisis (Bayar and Kotelis 2014) while domestic electoral pressures have pushed leaders on both sides to adopt an aggressive foreign policy (Güner 2004;You 2016;Karakasis 2019). Turkish citizens also generally place an emphasis on their country's foreign policy and regional standing while many of them view Greece as a threat and oppose a rapprochement (Aydın 2018:368;Aydın, Çelikpala, Guvenc, Hawks, Zaim, and Tigli 2020:66, 69).…”

The 2017 incidents in the Aegean and Turkish foreign policy: using Q-methodology to examine Greek viewpoints

“…For the sake of 'operationalization', they resort to Greek and Turkish newspaper archives and the memoirs of the key actors involved in that particular crisis. Guner (2004) employs evolutionary game analysis to scrutinize modes of stakeholders' behaviour in the Aegean. As he posits, Turkish (as well as Greek) political leaders, while dealing with the crises, embraced behaviours of fixed strategic prescriptions, framed as 'templates'.…”

“…Second, we review the literature on the strategic interaction between Greece and Turkey during the 1996 crisis. A significant number of scholars (Altman 2018;Athanassopoulou 1997;Bayar and Kotelis 2014;Dimitrakis 2008;Guner 2004;Suzuki and Loizides 2011) have enriched our understanding of Turkey's motives behind the 1996 incidents. However, at the time of writing, no academic article has been published to elucidate the undercurrents of the 2017 crisis.…”