Greece’s President, Katerina Sakellaropoulou,confidently strode into this highly charged environment on Sunday, taking a high-powered military helicopter to Kastellorizo, a tiny Greek island in the eastern Mediterranean, on the 77th anniversary of its nationhood.The 6-kilometer long spit of harsh rock and scrub, one of Greece’s easternmost islands, owes millennia of habitation to geographic good fortune. With its back to the Aegean and its mouth towards Turkey’s looming landmass, Kastellorizo’s bay turns ocean swells to mill pond tranquility, making it a prized harbor for many centuries of traders plying goods between Asia Minor and Europe.Today, Kastellorizo is at the center of the dispute over energy exploration in the eastern Mediterranean. Turkey says Greece is unfairly staking its claim to the area based on tiny islands like this one near its coast, cheating Ankara out of ocean floor to explore. Israel and Egypt have already found rich gas reserves under the Mediterranean, and there is plenty of reason to believe there is more to be discovered.
On Sunday, President Sakellaropoulou told the island’s residents that “the illegal actions of Turkey have caused tensions never seen before in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean. Tensions aimed not only at Greece, but also the EU and NATO, threatening peace and stability in the region.” She added that Greece was “open to dialogue” and that “immediate de-escalation on Turkey’s part is a necessary prerequisite for political discussion.”Only hours before she arrived, Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced he was beefing up the military, splashing out on 18 state-of-the-art French fighter jets, initiating a search for four new frigates for the navy, and adding 15,000 more troops to the army.
Credit : CNN
