By Bosphorus News Geopolitics Desk
The foreign policy sector of Elliniki Aristeri Symparataxi (ELAS), the party former Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras founded in May, said Monday that Türkiye's newly declared marine parks are illegal where they fall within the Greek continental shelf, and called on Athens to pursue European Union sanctions in response.
In a statement issued August 17, the party described the two presidential decrees Türkiye published in its Official Gazette as an unacceptable and provocative act that violates the Law of the Sea. It said the Greek government should respond immediately, condemn what it called Turkish revisionism, and warn Ankara of consequences at both the bilateral and EU-Türkiye level, including the option of European sanctions.
The statement went further than the Greek Foreign Ministry's own response on Sunday, which said the parks carry no legal effect beyond Turkish territorial waters but made no reference to sanctions. Türkiye's decrees established the Fethiye-Kaş Marine National Park and the North Aegean Marine National Park around Gökçeada, covering a combined 23,448 square kilometers.
ELAS tied the dispute directly to Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, saying the recent rise in tensions is the clearest proof of his foreign policy's failure. The party argued that instead of binding Ankara to dialogue grounded in international law, Mitsotakis gave Türkiye room to invoke calm waters when convenient and return to provocations after securing what it wanted, listing American and European arms, an upgraded position in NATO and the Mecca Agreement among those gains.
The party called for the resumption of exploratory contacts between the two countries, which it said the government had wrongly suspended. The talks ended in 2024 after 64 rounds spanning more than two decades.
Sources: Elliniki Aristeri Symparataxi, Greek Foreign Ministry, Bosphorus News review and reporting.