The political scientist assessed the likelihood of a new escalation between Turkey and Greece.

Political scientist Sbitneva: potential conflict between Ankara and Athens is not beneficial to NATO

Tue, 05/19/2026 - 04:32

Photo: Global Look Press/Giannis Panagopoulos via www.ima

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The draft law on maritime jurisdictions, under which Turkey wants to consolidate its maritime borders, has caused a lot of hype among countries claiming these territories, Alina Sbitneva, a researcher at the Department of the Middle and Post-Soviet East of the INION RAS, Candidate of Political Sciences, said in an interview with Izvestia.

Turkish gambit: They want to provoke Ankara into a war with its neighbors

The republic's key strategic ally, the United Kingdom, can really benefit from this.

Ankara is consistently strengthening itself in the Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea. The expert recalled that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan once said: "Our physical borders, meaning Turkey's borders, are different from the borders in our heart." And according to this principle, according to the interlocutor of the editorial board, the Turkish leadership lives and builds its foreign policy line.

"As for the draft law itself, firstly, it is under preparation, and no one has seen the original text yet. And secondly, even without an official document, Turkey would consider all these agreed disputed territories to be its own," the political scientist is sure.

Ankara is now rather trying to somehow substantiate its ambitions and claims at the level of national legislation, since it cannot change anything at the level of international law, the expert explained.

"There are relevant conventions and other documents. Turkey will refer to the document it drafted, but it will also be recognized only by it," Sbitneva noted.

Therefore, the adoption of the law by Turkey will not change the real situation, she said. However, two North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies will be on the verge of a collision. At the same time, Greece is also a member of the European Union (EU), which Turkey has been unsuccessfully trying to join for many years. And such a potential conflict is not beneficial to either the military-political alliance or its parties, Sbitneva stressed.