Turks doubling down on revisionist claims

The incident in July near Kasos in the southern Aegean which saw a Turkish naval mobilization was not not random, according to officials of the Turkish government who are loudly reiterating the rhetoric of the "Blue Homeland" - which envisages Turkish influence over vast swaths of the Eastern Mediterranean.

The resurgence of this rhetoric, however, seems to be directed mainly at the population in the interior of the country and in response to the criticisms of the Turkish opposition that the government is backtracking on the country's foreign policy.

Turkey's former defense minister and current lawmaker of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Hulusi Akar, said last Monday in his speech in parliament that "the Blue Homeland is the continental shelf, the territorial waters, the EEZ, the maritime jurisdiction zones in the Black Sea, the Aegean, the...