By Micah Jonah
January 17, 2026
Athens – Greece plans to extend its territorial waters further including potentially in the Aegean Sea despite a long standing warning from Turkiye that such a move could be considered a cause for war, Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis said on Friday.
The two countries are NATO allies but have remained historic rivals, continue to disagree over where their continental shelves and maritime zones begin and end in the Aegean, an area believed to hold significant energy resources, with implications for airspace and military overflights.
Greece has already expanded its territorial waters in the Ionian Sea to twelve nautical miles from six following agreements with Italy, has also signed a maritime delimitation deal with Egypt in the eastern Mediterranean. However, Athens has avoided similar action in the Aegean due to strong objections from Ankara.
In 1995, the Turkish parliament declared that any unilateral extension of Greek territorial waters beyond six nautical miles in the Aegean would be regarded as a cause for war, a position Greece says violates international maritime law.
Speaking in parliament on Friday Gerapetritis said further expansion was expected, noting that Greece had already reached agreements with neighbouring countries and would proceed with additional extensions. He did not specify which maritime areas would be affected by the next phase of expansion.
Turkiye’s Foreign Ministry was not immediately available for comment on the latest statement from Athens.
Tensions were also raised last year when Greece announced plans to establish two marine parks in the Ionian and Aegean seas. The Aegean park covering about nine thousand five hundred square kilometres is expected to initially expand around the southern Cyclades islands, an area further south of Turkiye, a move that has already drawn objections from Ankara.
Greece maintains that the only issue it is prepared to negotiate with Turkiye is the formal demarcation of maritime zones including the continental shelf and exclusive economic zone, insisting that questions of sovereignty are not open to discussion.
Despite recent efforts by both sides to ease tensions officials say the underlying disputes remain unresolved, raising concerns that renewed maritime moves could again strain relations between the two neighbours.
