Turkey’s threats and Greece’s strength

Despite Greece's consistent efforts to limit tensions with Turkey over the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean by avoiding over-the-top reactions and statements, the climate remains restive.

The upcoming regional elections in Turkey partly explain some of the excessive rhetoric from Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but the Turkish president, who is known for his bluster, is not alone in this. Other politicians - from the leader of the government's nationalist coalition partner, Devlet Bahceli, and hardliner Meral Aksener to the leader of the Kemalist opposition, Kemal Kilicdaroglu - have also been making all sorts of threats, some bordering on the ludicrous.

The Greek-Turkish equation is not as easy as some on the other side of the Aegean like to present it. Greece is a force to be reckoned with. It has never been described by experts as powerless or negligible in terms of...

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