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Greco-Turkish confrontation looming, could escalate and engulf the entire region

By Drago Bosnic | March 20, 2025

Deteriorating relations between Greeks and Turks are certainly nothing new. The two peoples have had on-and-off wars for over 900 years, spanning Asia Minor/Anatolia, the Aegean Sea/Eastern Mediterranean and Southeast Europe. The tensions haven’t really subsided even after both Greece and Turkey joined NATO in 1952.

Just three years later, there was the Istanbul pogrom during which Ankara intentionally targeted the ancient city’s native Greeks (along with other minorities). Then there was the 1974 invasion of Cyprus that effectively resulted in an undeclared war between Greece and Turkey.

The end of the (First) Cold War saw another round of escalation that reached its peak in the mid-1990s. Although agreements on demilitarization were reached at the time, Erdogan’s rise to power gave way to an extremely expansionist and aggressive Neo-Ottoman foreign policy in Ankara.

Turkey sees the division of EEZs (exclusive economic zones) in the Aegean Sea and Eastern Mediterranean as “unfair” and effectively wants to take over around half of both, including most of the EEZ around Cyprus. This wasn’t such a burning issue before the discovery of huge deposits of oil and natural gas. However, ever since, Ankara has been trying to establish control over these resources, almost exclusively in an aggressive manner, causing issues with all of its maritime neighbors in the region.

This resulted in continued militarization on both sides, with Greece (re)establishing bases on the Aegean islands, while Turkey keeps strengthening its offensive potential. Athens is particularly interested in reinforcing its ASDEN (the Supreme Military Command of the Interior and Islands). To that end, it’s acquiring various multipurpose missiles, particularly the Israeli “Spike”.

This includes the “Spike” NLOS (Non Line Of Site). In April 2023, the Greek military ordered 17 of these systems on 4×4 vehicles, as well as for nine of its US-made AH-64 “Apache” attack helicopters and four Machitis-class gunboats. Some variants of the “Spike” have a claimed maximum range of over 30 km, meaning that they can cover a significant portion of the Aegean Sea and deter potential Turkish attacks.

However, in recent years, Ankara developed a number of weapons with an operational (and even strategic) impact, particularly rocket and missile systems, as well as a plethora of unmanned platforms (both air and sea-based). Namely, in the aftermath of the July 2016 coup, Erdogan effectively purged the Turkish military of any disloyal elements, resulting in a virtual paralysis of the Navy and Air Force. The issue of manpower shortages was then resolved with a focus on unmanned systems.

The side effect of this change was not only much tighter political control over the Turkish military (largely loyal to the Pentagon prior to the 2016 coup), but also a more aggressive posturing, as the Turkish political elite became more (over)confident. This resulted in the escalation of various regional wars and conflicts, spanning from the South Caucasus to Lybia.

Worse yet, Ankara is seeking to expand its influence in Southeast Europe. To that end, it’s preparing to ratify military agreements with several countries, including Albania, North Macedonia and the narco-terrorist entity in the NATO-occupied Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohia. These agreements were first announced in 2024, but Turkey was yet to act on them. For its part, Greece sees this as an attempt to encircle it with enemies, with Ankara establishing a strategic presence and expanding influence behind Athens’ back.

Greece is quite concerned by these developments. Southeast Europe has long been a contested geopolitical arena, with various external powers trying to establish a foothold in the region. Greek media report that the aforementioned agreements were “quickly pushed onto the agenda of the Turkish Parliament, in contrast to the usual lengthy approval processes for similar military agreements”.

This allows Turkey and its regional partners and satellites to closely collaborate in various military projects, including training, joint exercises, enhancing defense industry ties, information exchange, logistics support, medical services, cyber warfare, etc. The agreements also provide a legal framework for personnel exchanges and joint research in military science and technology. Ankara is also implementing some of these policies under the guise of humanitarian efforts and disaster relief.

For Turkey, this isn’t merely a question of strategic encirclement of Greece, but also a way to push forward with its extremely aggressive Neo-Ottoman foreign policy framework. Ankara wants to reforge ties with various leftovers of its brutal occupation of Southeast Europe. This is particularly true for highly dysfunctional parastate entities such as Bosnia and Herzegovina and/or Kosovo and Metohia.

Thus, it sees these formal military agreements as a strategic springboard for further inroads in the region. This includes sales of unmanned systems and other military products. As previously mentioned, many of these agreements are hidden from the public by being masked as something else. According to Turkish Brigadier General Esat Mahmut Yilmaz, his country consolidated the three agreements into a single framework to expedite the participation of its military in various operations abroad.

In effect, this means that, once ratified and published in the Official Gazette, these agreements will allow the Turkish military to push for secondary agreements with foreign partners without further parliamentary approval, limiting public discussion on Turkey’s military activities abroad and effectively giving Erdogan a free hand in armed engagements in the increasingly volatile region.

To that end, Ankara is even establishing ties with countries like Croatia, which just signed a similar strategic agreement with virtually the same partners (Albania and the narco-terrorist entity in the NATO-occupied Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohia). This is obviously aimed against Belgrade, which maintains close ties with Athens and sees such expansionism as a direct threat to its basic national security interest. Either way, it seems the region is in for a rough ride in the upcoming years.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

March 20, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ukrainian attack on TurkStream threatens Hungary’s sovereignty – FM

RT | March 1, 2025

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has condemned a recent drone attack on a compressor station of the TurkStream gas pipeline, labeling it an assault on his nation’s sovereignty due to the conduit’s critical role in its energy security.

Szijjarto’s comments came on Saturday after the Russian military reported thwarting a Ukrainian drone attack on the Russkaya compressor station on Friday night. This station is a critical facility for the TurkStream, also known as Turkish Stream, pipeline in Russia’s Krasnodar Region, serving as the point of exit on Russian soil for gas deliveries. The Defense Ministry stated that three drones were neutralized by air defense systems, preventing any damage to the station’s operations.

“The Turkish Stream pipeline is the guarantee of Hungary’s natural gas supply security; therefore, any potential disruption would seriously jeopardize our energy security,” Szijjarto wrote on Facebook. “Energy security is a matter of sovereignty, and therefore this type of attack should be considered an attack on sovereignty.”

The pipeline, which has been operational since January 2020, delivers Russian natural gas to Turkish customers and several European countries, including Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Greece.

The Hungarian minister also called on the European Commission to clarify its stance on the matter, reminding it of its recent assurance that Ukraine would not target EU-bound infrastructure.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov informed Szijjarto about the attempted attack during a phone conversation initiated by Hungary, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. He explained the incident and its implications for the pipeline’s security.

The incident is not the first involving the facility. Back in January, Ukrainian forces attempted to attack it with nine kamikaze drones, according to the Russian military. All of the UAVs were intercepted, but debris from the explosions caused minor damage to the station.

Commenting on the incident at the time, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused Ukraine of engaging in acts of “energy terrorism.”

March 1, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine attempted drone strike on Russian gas supply to NATO states – Moscow

RT | January 13, 2025

Ukraine has launched an unsuccessful drone attack on Russian energy infrastructure which delivers natural gas to Türkiye , the Defense Ministry in Moscow reported on Monday.

The attempted sabotage took place on Saturday and involved nine kamikaze drones, which Ukrainian forces launched at the Russkaya gas compressor station near the village of Gaikodzor in Russia’s Krasnodar Region, according to a statement from the ministry.

The site is crucial for the operation of the TurkStream pipeline, which delivers natural gas from Russia to Türkiye under the Black Sea. Several nations in southern Europe, including EU member Hungary, use the Turkish route to receive supplies. Kiev’s attack was “aimed at stopping the supply of gas to European nations” through the neutral intermediary, the Russian Defense Ministry stated.

The Ukrainian attack against the Russkaya station was largely thwarted, the military added. One fixed-wing drone crashed close to a gas meter and caused minor damage, which was swiftly fixed by the facility’s personnel, it said. The incident caused no interruption in supplies, the statement stressed.

Kiev has refused to renew a transit contract with Russia which expired at the start of this year, and which had involved Russian gas being supplied to EU countries through Ukrainian territory. Slovakia, one of the nations affected by the decision, has accused Ukraine of causing an energy crisis.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has described Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky as someone who “roams Europe begging and blackmailing” Western nations in the hope of extracting more military assistance to fight Russia.

Zelensky previously accused Fico of striking “shady deals” with Moscow and of undermining the EU’s “unity” in the confrontation with Russia. He also claimed the Slovak secret services should investigate Fico for corruption.

The TurkStream pipeline was launched in January 2020 and has an annual capacity of 31.5 billion cubic meters. Its underwater section extends for around 930km, while the Russkaya station serves as the point of exit on Russian soil. One of the pipeline’s two strings serves Turkish customers, while the other leads to consumers in Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Greece. Russian officials have accused Kiev of attempts to sabotage the energy link on multiple occasions in recent years.

January 13, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Republika Srpska’s leader won’t allow Bosnia, Herzegovina to join NATO

Al Mayadeen | July 7, 2024

President Milorad Dodik states he will not allow Bosnia and Herzegovina to join NATO, emphasizing that Republika Srpska supports maintaining neutrality.

Republika Srpska will not allow Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) to join NATO due to the Serbs’ memory of past suffering, Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik told Sputnik.

“I will be very clear: Bosnia and Herzegovina will not join NATO, referring to the procedure and the law by which the Parliamentary Assembly must reach an agreement on this issue on the basis of a majority of the decisions envisaged for adoption. So this agreement cannot and will not be reached. Serbs will never forget the suffering of innocent civilians, so we will never give our consent for Bosnia and Herzegovina to join NATO,” Dodik stated.

In the spring, Denis Becirovic, the Bosniak member of the BiH Presidency, told NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg that BiH’s strategic goal is to join NATO. In January, Dodik expressed that while Republika Srpska allows cooperation with NATO, it opposes BiH’s membership in the alliance.

July 7, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Going for the Kill in Kosovo

By Stephen Karganovic | Strategic Culture Foundation | January 28, 2023

The collective West’s unsuccessful war against Russia using Ukraine as the stage and Ukrainians as cannon fodder has induced the Transatlantic alliance to desperately seek some semblance of victory, anywhere, in order to disguise the scope and lessen the political repercussions of its failure in the Ukraine.

The solution it has come up with to repair its tarnished hegemonic image is the aggressive campaign to wrap up “unfinished business” in the Balkans. Coming from such quarters, any “attention” to Balkan nations is invariably bad news for the country so favoured. That is the case in this instance as well.

The West judges, perhaps not entirely incorrectly, that Serbia and the Republic of Srpska, its perennial Balkan targets because thus far they have withstood total submission, are currently in a disadvantageous position to continue to resist effectively. With pretensions to embody the “international community,” although it consists mainly of the NATO/EU block of countries, the Alliance is increasingly and now openly shifting to a war footing. That raises to a new level its customary belligerence and disregard for the niceties of international legality and standard diplomatic practice. It never was greatly bothered in the past to observe the norms of civilised interaction between states. But now, with intense pressure to produce some kind of political victory to compensate for the failure in Ukraine, gloves are definitely off.

That puts both Serbia and its sister state, the Republic of Srpska, in a more precarious position than at any other time recently. They are both geographically distant from their natural allies and surrounded by hostile territory politically and militarily controlled by the Western Alliance, which is planning their demise. A comparison with the position of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in the spring of 1941 would not be wide off the mark.

Complementing a similarly unenviable geopolitical predicament, there is an additional unfavourable analogy for Serbia. Its ruling elite are as feeble, vacillating, corruptible, treacherous, and disoriented as was the Royal Yugoslav government in March of 1941. That is when Nazi Germany went for the kill and demanded imperatively that in the looming global conflict Yugoslavia either commit to its side, or face dire consequences. Now it is NATO and EU which are going for the kill and the pretext is Kosovo. The Serbian government a few days ago was handed an ultimatum. The demand was that Serbia give up pretensions of sovereignty over NATO occupied Kosovo and unequivocally align itself with the aggressor alliance in the conflict in Ukraine. It was conveyed by a delegation of Western ambassadors in the form of a brutal warning that dilly dallying about Kosovo must come to an urgent end. Serbia was told that it must unreservedly acquiesce to the robbery of its cultural and religious cradle by signing off on Kosovo’s secession and accepting its illegal fruits. It should be recalled that the occupation of Kosovo was initiated in 1999, when NATO committed unprovoked aggression against Yugoslavia and it was completed in 2008 by a unilateral declaration of “independence” made under NATO auspices.

As is always the case, the West’s actual interest in Kosovo has nothing to do with the publicly stated reasons. Suffice it to say that Kosovo is the site of Camp Bondsteel, the largest military base in Europe, strategically situated so as to be of great use should the Ukrainian conflict degenerate further into an all-out global war.

Judging by official Belgrade’s initial reactions, it is conceivable that the Serbian government may be contemplating a course of action inspired by the collapse of the will experienced by the Royal Yugoslav government in March of 1941, when under Nazi pressure it did as ordered and signed its adherence to the Axis pact. It ought to be remembered by all concerned, however, that the consequences of that infamous breakdown were short lived. Within just a few days, popular revulsion in Serbia forced the ousting of officials responsible for the shameful betrayal of public trust. The immoral commitments they had undertaken on the nation’s behalf were effectively annulled. If further analogies need to be made with the situation in 1941, it should be pointed out that the reputation of the protagonists of cowardice and treachery displayed then lives in infamy to the present day.

Whether such considerations will be sufficient to deter those currently responsible for Serbia’s official decisions remains to be seen.

Alongside Serbia, the neighbouring Republic of Srpska, an entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina populated mostly by Serbs, which recently experienced a turbulent election followed by an attempt to achieve regime change using instruments from the color revolution handbook, is also targeted for harsh treatment by the unforgiving Western democracies. Like Serbia’s, its population is solidly on the “wrong side of history” in general and in the Ukrainian conflict in particular, with all that implies. With a similar degree of unanimity, the population and the government are also opposed to having anything to do with NATO. Under the terms of the Dayton agreement signed in 1995, by which the prerogatives of Bosnia’s entities are governed, that effectively blocks Bosnia’s entry into NATO and participation in its activities.

Understandably, this blockade of what is euphemistically called Bosnia’s “Euro Atlanticist integrations,” is an insufferable affront and irritant. As a result, punitive measures against the uncooperative leadership of the Republic of Srpska are now being contemplated. It is a sure bet that if Serbia caves and in cowboy fashion the Kosovo issue is resolved, Bosnia’s defiant Serbian entity will soon be next. It will again find itself actively targeted and in the outraged “international community” cross hairs.

It is, of course, still premature to call the outcome of the ominous new chapter being prepared in the Kosovo crisis, but a perfect storm with turbulent effects appears to be approaching. The same recklessness that over the past year had been on display in the Ukraine is now in evidence increasingly in the Balkans. Andrey Martyanov’s repeated assessment of Western elites as arrogant, ignorant, and incompetent, which he illustrates with a steady stream of examples from the Ukrainian theatre, may soon find another resounding confirmation in the Balkans, to the immense misfortune of all its inhabitants.

January 28, 2023 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sarajevo’s snub of Lavrov’s visit is in the hope of challenging Serbian power in Bosnia

By Paul Antonopoulos | December 17, 2020

The scandalous refusal of the members of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Željko Komšić and Šefik Džaferović, to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday, indicates what the Republika Srpska has been warning about for years is correct – that BiH is dysfunctional and it is impossible to cooperate with Sarajevo. Their move could also be linked to murmurings in Washington about intentions to destroy the Dayton Agreement that created BiH in 1995. BiH was established as two entities – the mostly Bosnian Muslim-Croatian Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Serbian-dominated Republika Srpska.

It is not the first time that Bosnian Muslim and Croat representatives have changed their minds before an event or meeting. At the beginning of the Bosnian War, Alija Izetbegović, who in 1992 became the first president of the Presidency of the newly independent BiH, withdrew from the Carrington–Cutileiro peace plan on the same day he met U.S. ambassador to Yugoslavia, Warren Zimmermann, in Sarajevo. Zimmermann denies instructing Izetbegović to withdraw from the 1992 Carrington–Cutileiro peace plan, but it is not hard to connect the dots. Because of Izetbegović’s withdrawal from the peace plan, the Bosnian War violently waged on until December 1995.

Sarajevo maintains a policy of constantly toying with agreements to create diplomatic scandals. However, despite the Bosnian Muslims and Croats continually undermining the unity of BiH by opposing the Republika Sprska, Džaferović and Komšić created perhaps their biggest scandal yet by refusing to meet with Lavrov with an undiplomatic excuse that he did not respect BiH institutions – without providing examples. Instead of holding an already scheduled meeting with him, they decided to hold their own press conference at the same time the Russian Foreign Minister spoke with the third member of the Presidency, the Republika Srpaska’s Milorad Dodik.

“With respect to the Russian Federation as a big and powerful country, we will not agree to become a Russian pawn in the Balkans in their games and conflicts with EU or NATO member countries. We expect them to understand and support this,” Komšić said.

It is possible that the Bosnian Muslim and Croat in the Presidency of BiH misunderstood a short statement from the transitional cabinet of U.S. President-Elect Joe Biden about how the work in Dayton is not finished.

Lavrov, as an extremely experienced diplomat, did not violate any protocol and did everything according to international norms and standards. The obvious problem is that Sarajevo does not want dialogue with Moscow. The Bosnian Muslim and Croat representatives could have taken advantage of the Serbs in BiH, who have a historical, ethnic and religious connection with Russia, to benefit all BiH citizens. Instead they decided to create a scandal and once again divide the country along ethnic and religious lines.

The visit of a foreign minister from a larger and influential country is an opportunity for each country to try and explain their views and improve understanding and relations with each other. If such an opportunity is rejected, it sends a negative message, not only because of the lack of desire to improve relations for mutually beneficial cooperation, but also because it fosters suspicions and tensions.

Komšić’s and Džaferović’s refusal to meet with Lavrov is an irresponsible political decision considering Moscow has always had a principled attitude towards BiH, especially as Moscow is one of the guarantors of the Dayton Agreement. Their decision to snub Lavrov is a reflection of their own frustrations against the Dayton Agreement because Bosnian Muslims are not satisfied with it. This is because they have always had the goal of supremacy and domination over all of BiH, while simultaneously sidelining the Serbs. They continually attempt to disempower the Dayton Agreement in order to achieve their goal through a belief that a better functioning system can be achieved through a centralized Bosnian Muslim dominated state that would gain supremacy over not only the Serbs, but also the Croats, who for now are just enjoying an alliance of necessity with Bosnian Muslims.

Lavrov did not comment on the boycott at a media conference and the Russian Foreign Ministry posted a photo of the meeting without mentioning that the other two presidency members were not present. Publicly, Moscow is showing that this is an unimportant issue. However, within the Kremlin, it is likely decisionmakers are contemplating what to make of this snub and how to react at an appropriate time.

The Russian diplomat’s visit to BiH coincided with the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Dayton peace agreement, which although left BiH as an example of why artificial states like BiH result in failure, it did end the bloodshed that Izetbegović instigated for many years by withdrawing from the Carrington–Cutileiro peace plan in March 1992.

Lavrov emphasized on Monday, the other day before his visit to BiH, that the Dayton agreement must not be changed, referring to comments by Western diplomats, Bosnian politicians and Washington that it needs to be changed.

“I would like to say that any attempt to demolish [the Dayton agreement] can cause the most serious risks and consequences,” Lavrov said.

By snubbing the Russian Foreign Minister, it appears that Komšić and Džaferović are attempting to demolish the Dayton agreement so that Bosnian Muslims and Croats can achieve more power in BiH at the expense of the Republika Srpska.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

 

December 17, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment