Editorial: National vigilance

The instability and complexity that prevail in the broader region of the Southeastern Mediterranean are for Greece endangering issues of national importance and national rights.

The wealth that is hidden under the sea is attracting everyone, intensifying adventurism, and aggravating competition.

Undoubtedly many supra-national and national forces - many with not so innocent intentions - are active in the region.

Multinationals, big powers, regional nations, and all sorts of adventurists act as they see fit with no concern for the region and its people.

That stands true first of all for Turkey which believes it has found an opportunity to exhibit the arbitrary expansionism of its leader and expand the field of its illegal, putative "interests".

It is using Libya as a battering ram and a basis for disputing the interests of others.

With no direct contact with the war zone it invented maritime borders with part of war-torn Libya in order to dispute Greece's Exclusive Economic Zone, as defined by the 1982 UN Law of  the Sea Convention.

At the same time Turkey is disputing the sovereignty of the Greek islands in the Aegean.

Turkey's untrammeled audacity and enormous provocations have led to not unfounded suspicions that Ankara is getting ready for extremely bellicose acts against Greece.

In this it is unfortunately aided by international conditions and the vacillation and unstable stance of the West.

Most superpowers and natural allies of Greece are tending to their interests rather than acting based on EU principles.

The 19 January Berlin Conference on the Libya crisis and Greece's exclusion from it offer ample confirmation of the above.

Greek public opinion rightly believes that Athens will...