Greece-Turkey Clash Returns to the Aegean Over Green Energy Projects and Marine Parks

Relations between Greece and Turkey, two NATO member states that remain rivals, have once again been strained. This time, the dispute centers on plans for renewable energy and the creation of marine parks in the Aegean.

Ankara initially responded through the Foreign Ministry and, a day later, through the Defense Ministry, opposing the new framework approved by Greece for the deployment of renewable energy projects. According to the Turkish side, the Greek map includes islands, rocky formations and islets whose sovereignty, it claims, has not been recognized as belonging to Greece by international treaties.

With this position, Turkey has brought the concept of “grey zones” in the Aegean back into the debate—a theory that Greece has categorically rejected for decades.

The development came just a few days after the earlier dispute over marine parks. On August 15, Turkey announced, through two presidential decrees, the creation of two national marine parks: the first in the northern Aegean, in the area between Limnos and Samothrace, and the second in the Eastern Mediterranean, near Kastelorizo.

Greece opposed these measures, stating through the Foreign Ministry that the areas extending beyond Turkish territorial waters and which, according to Athens, lie within the Greek continental shelf are illegal and create no legal rights whatsoever.

Turkey, meanwhile, insists that unilateral initiatives should be avoided in the Aegean and the Mediterranean, while calling for cooperation between the two coastal countries.

Earlier, Greece had announced its marine parks in the Ionian Sea and the Cyclades, the group of Greek islands located southeast of the country. Athens has stressed that these areas lie entirely within Greek territorial waters.

After nearly three years of the period known as the “calm waters,” established on the basis of agreements between the two countries, green energy and environmental protection are once again bringing to the surface the longstanding Greek-Turkish disputes over sovereignty and maritime zones in the Aegean.