Insisting on the expansionist ‘Blue Homeland’

The positive climate that has been established in the last year between Greece and Turkey is on a collision course with the recurring rhetoric from Ankara about the expansionist doctrine of the so-called "Blue Homeland," which envisages Turkish influence over vast areas that extend from the Black Sea, to the Aegean and the Mediterranean.

In Greece, even moderate politicians, diplomats and opinion makers who genuinely believe in an improved bilateral relationship with our neighbor to the east find it difficult to argue in support of their vision when voices on the other side of the Aegean continue to promote grandiose schemes and revisionist claims.

The recent incident near the Greek island of Kasos in the southern Aegean, and the ideological aggressiveness shown by the Turkish government in promoting the Blue Homeland doctrine was a reminder of Turkey's maximalist...