French-greek military deal to deter Turkey

Commitment to mutual defence in Macron’s frigate deal designed to curb rival in Mediterranean

FRANCE will come to the aid of Greece in the event of a war with Turkey under the terms of a new defence pact, the Greek prime minister has claimed in remarks that are likely to exacerbate spiralling military tensions in the Mediterranean.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis told Greek MPS yesterday that the mutual defence clause in a military cooperation deal with Paris finalised last month was designed to deter Turkey from using an escalating maritime territorial dispute between the two as an excuse for war.

“For the first time it is clearly stipulated that there will be military assistance in the event of a third party attacking one of the two states,” he said in an address to parliament ahead of the vote to ratify the deal.

“And we all know who is threatening whom with a casus belli [cause for war] in the Mediterranean,” he added.

France and Greece agreed a deal that included the purchase of three frigates for €3billion (£2.5billion) in late September. The agreement includes a clause which states the countries will come to each other’s aid “with all appropriate means at their disposal, and if necessary with the use of armed force if they jointly ascertain that an armed attack is taking place against the territory of one of the two.”

At the time, the office of Emmanuel Macron, the French president, explicitly denied that the agreement targeted Turkey and insisted it was in line with existing Nato commitments, describing it as an attempt to “strengthen European sovereignty, including in the eastern Mediterranean”.

But Mr Mitsotakis explicitly referred to the danger of an intra-alliance conflict when asked why such a clause was necessary.

“Does Article 5 apply in the case of an attack by a Nato member? I’m not sure Nato has ever been very clear on that issue.”

Turkey condemned the pact as a breach of international law that would threaten rather than straighten security in the eastern Mediterranean. “Greece’s policy of armament as well as isolation and alienation of Turkey, instead of cooperation, is a problematic policy, which will threaten regional peace and stability and undermine not only itself but also the EU, which Greece is a member of,” Tanju Bilgiç, a spokesperson for the Turkish foreign ministry, said on Oct 1.

Greece and Turkey are locked in a dispute over maritime borders amid a dash for development of potential gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean.

The quarrel led to a maritime standoff last year that raised fears of war between the two Nato allies and has escalated again in recent weeks. Turkey has said any attempt by Greece to extend its territorial waters in the Aegean to 12 nautical miles, Athens would be a casus belli, or cause for war. Some Greek islands lie less than 12 miles from Turkey’s western coast.

France has expressed its own frustrations with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s foreign policy and sent two Rafale fighter jets and a frigate in the eastern Mediterranean amid the tensions between Greece and Turkey last summer.

Tensions between Greece and Turkey date back centuries, and a war between the two has long been regarded as a nightmare scenario for Nato.