Turkish Frigate Docks in Piraeus – Ankara Points to Burgeoning Cooperation

A year-long “thaw” in relations between Athens and Ankara, accompanied by months of almost zero provocations by the Turkish side in the Aegean, now features the latter country’s armed force showcasing every instance of bilateral cooperation.

Although two abrupt Navtex notifications that were issued by Turkey this week – both affecting large tracts of the eastern Aegean – reminded that Ankara has not abandoned its revisionist and expansionist “long view”, nevertheless Wednesday witnessed a Turkish navy frigate docking in Piraeus.

The warship, the Gediz, is part of the Standing NATO Maritime Group 2’s (SNMG2) immediate reaction force, in which the Hellenic Navy frigate Kanaris is also participating.

The occasion of the Turkish naval vessel’s docking at Greece’s main port generated a post on X (Twitter) by the Turkish ambassador to Athens, Çağatay Erciyes, while a day earlier Turkey’s national defense ministry posted a tweet a day earlier on the training exercise the Hellenic Navy frigate Limnos, part of the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) mission.