The Mediterranean-Balkans-Middle East Complexandthe Western Strategy in the Greek-Turkish Conflict (elements of Power and Law (original) (raw)

Turkey’s Neo-Ottoman policy on the Balkans: does it clash or match with the EU?

ii Statutory Declaration I hereby declare that this thesis has been written by myself without any external unauthorised help, that it has been neither presented to any institution for evaluation nor previously published in its entirety or in parts. Any parts, words or ideas, of the thesis, however limited, and including tables, graphs, maps etc., which are quoted from or based on other sources, have been acknowledged as such without exception.

Ankara’s Neo-Ottomanism Defies the Rule of Law

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY HELLENIC ISSUES, 2021

Protection of Hellenism’s Exclusive Economic Zone (the combined EEZ of Hellas and Cyprus) is the single issue which binds together all the national issues that Hellenism faces globally. The threat to Hellenism continues to be the same aggressive Turkish imperialism it has had to deal with for almost a millennium.

Then Is Now, but the Colours are New: Greece, Cyprus and the Evolving Power Game between the West, Russia and Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean

Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies

This paper seeks to survey, analyse and evaluate the rôle of Greece and Cyprus vis-à-vis the security and geo-economic dimension of the Eastern Mediterranean through the lens of integration and regional strategic interests in the region. Despite the enlargement of NATO and the European Union, which have striven to integrate new countries into the Western community, the regional balance of interests has proven to be more unstable than predicted by the proponents of a Westernized and peaceful Eastern Mediterranean. Influenced by the strengthening rôle of Russia and Turkey, as well as by internal structural problems in the social, political and economic spheres, the Hellenic Republic and the Republic of Cyprus find themselves in a maelstrom of different and often conflicting regional interests, over which they have only minimal control. Developments are likely to have an impact on not only European integration, but on regional stability as a whole, since it can be argued that the old power structures of NATO and the EU are now having to contend with new regional factors. The article concludes with the observation that the situation in the region is confusing and volatile in diplomatic terms.

Securitizing the Aegean: de-Europeanizing Greek–Turkish relations

Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 2022

Turkish foreign policy has experienced a profound transformation in the nearly two decades since the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) came to power. In its first decade (2002-2011), the AKP government sought to consolidate, promote, and implement its agenda through the use of soft power while also aligning Turkey with the West and EU conditionality. However, since 2011 domestic and international developments have led Ankara to pursue a 'logic of strategic autonomy.' Since the failed coup attempt in July 2016-which reinforced a trend towards resecuritization in Turkish foreign policy-relations with the EU in general and Greece, in particular, have grown more complicated, leading to a militarized and increasingly tense situation in the region. Against this backdrop, the present article analyses the rekindling of the 'Aegean Cold War' since 2016, focusing principally on the Aegean, Cyprus, and the refugee crisis and the EU's ambivalent policy towards Turkey and Greek-Turkish relations in general.