Ankara’s ‘paper war’ maintains tension

Overflights by Turkish fighters over Greek airspace, a lasting major source of tension between the two nominal allies, may have virtually ceased over the past six months, but this has not lulled Greek officials into believing that Turkey has abandoned its disputing of Greek sovereignty over large parts of the Aegean.

The war of nerves, and real chance of an armed clash, due to the overflights and other Turkish actions, has been substituted with paperwork, in the form of protests emanating from Turkey's foreign and defense ministries.

Since last November, Turkey has made representations to Greece about movements of its armed forces that have taken place well within Greek territory.

Three of them stand out: On November 21, a diplomatic note claimed that Greek fighter jets harassed two Turkish ones. In February, Turkey presented a list of seven violations of...