Greek-Turkish relations in US, Israel shadow 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (c), Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides (l) and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis clasp a associated property league aft a trilateral gathering astatine the Citadel of David Hotel successful Jerusalem, connected December 22, 2025. [Abir Sultan/Pool/Via AP]

Greece is attempting to strike a hard equilibrium betwixt deepening its determination alliances and maintaining the connection channels established with Ankara implicit the past three years, while intimately monitoring Washington’s relation arsenic a cardinal powerfulness broker successful the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean. Although the Athens-Ankara-Washington triangle remains central, Israel is progressively shaping the strategic situation confronting Greek overseas policy.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis traveled to Jerusalem past Monday with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides, where they met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and reaffirmed their committedness to deepening practice crossed respective sectors. The trilateral gathering was perceived successful Ankara arsenic a revival of an explicitly “anti-Turkish” alignment, peculiarly arsenic Netanyahu spoke openly against Turkey. For Greece, the contiguous effect was a instrumentality to Turkish airspace violations and the archetypal mock dogfight successful the northeastern Aegean successful astir three years.

The violations occurred betwixt six and 10 nautical miles of airspace, reflecting a long-standing dispute, arsenic some within NATO respect Greece’s 10-mile airspace bounds arsenic an anomaly fixed its 6-mile territorial waters successful the Aegean.

Athens sees these shifting dynamics arsenic portion of the region’s wider information architecture. Netanyahu’s visit to Mar-a-Lago and the imaginable of a gathering with US President Donald Trump are viewed arsenic significant, with Washington seen arsenic a imaginable “arbiter” successful strained Turkish-Israeli relations, peculiarly implicit Syria. Greek assessments suggest Turkey lacks the economical capableness to negociate Syria alone, arsenic Saudi Arabia and Qatar grow their power successful Damascus, while Israeli plans would bounds Ankara’s power and summation Jerusalem’s determination weight.

Greek officials judge person alignment with Israel is viewed by Ankara arsenic added Western pressure. However, a afloat instrumentality to the pre-February 2023 clime of tension is considered unlikely. Athens is preparing for constricted violations but nary large escalation, particularly arsenic contentious projects such arsenic the Greece-Cyprus energy interconnection stay frozen.