Retired Turkish admiral Cem Gürdeniz is warning that Greece is "playing with fire" and pulling France into a dangerous c...

Retired Turkish admiral Cem Gürdeniz is warning that Greece is "playing with fire" and pulling France into a dangerous confrontation over disputed Eastern Mediterranean waters. A NAVTEX notice covering November 6, 2026 through March 6, 2027 has been filed for the French research vessel Abeille Marengo, authorizing operations in waters Turkey considers part of its Blue Homeland continental shelf. Gürdeniz says the cable project is cover for something far bigger: an attempt by Greece to establish facts on the ground in one of Turkey's most sensitive maritime zones. The operation carries direct echoes of the 2024 Kaşot crisis, which unfolded in the same area. Gürdeniz argues that returning to that exact flashpoint so soon after that confrontation is a deliberate challenge to Turkish resolve, and a serious miscalculation by Athens. He also pushes back hard against the idea that Turkey's current domestic difficulties, economic pressure, political polarization, and reduced room to maneuver, translate into weakness abroad. Anyone who reads Turkey's state will as dependent on personal political relationships is misreading it, he says. Turkey's willingness to defend its sovereign rights does not waver because of internal turbulence. On France's involvement, Gürdeniz is direct: he hopes Paris will not become a partner in what he calls Greece's gamble. Turkey filed its continental shelf boundaries with the United Nations in March 2020, and Gürdeniz argues those coordinates must be respected. An undersea cable project, he insists, cannot legally be used to push disputed maritime claims into reality. His call to Ankara goes further than issuing a counter-NAVTEX. He says Turkey must back any diplomatic and legal objection with a credible naval presence on the water. Paper protests without physical deterrence, in his view, accomplish nothing. #BlueHomeland #GreeceTurkey #EasternMediterranean