"Turkey has been developing its navy for 13 years. Now she obviously feels quite strong. "The strategic goal was clear from the beginning: Turkey wanted, according to President Erdogan and then Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, to become a regional power in the Middle East and the Balkans, and why not a global power." Welt adds: "This is not just the fleet, with which Ankara wants to exert power and influence in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.
Since 2015, a new dogma of intervention describes what Erdogan intends to do with the construction of a very expensive fleet: As stated in this doctrine, the fleet is a tool of foreign policy, especially for the Aegean and Cyprus. Not that there is any threat to Turkey from Greece or Cyprus - the doctrine does not say so. "But Turkey's supposedly legitimate interest in claiming gray areas in Greek territorial waters off the Turkish coast, where many islands belong to Greece, but also in the gas fields in front of Cyprus," the German newspaper writes.
"The border between Turkey and Greece was defined in 1923 by the Treaty of Lausanne. It makes it clear that the Aegean islands in front of the Turkish coast remain in Greece. Turkey has never overcome it. Already in 1996, a war almost broke out for Imia. "Only now, as its fleet strengthens, does Turkey come to terms with the fact that every rock that emerges from the sea and is not explicitly mentioned in the Treaty of Lausanne belongs to its territory," Die Welt notes.
"The result of this policy is a huge increase in military incidents by air and sea. In areas of Greek territory, where Turkey claims to belong to its sovereignty. About 2.000 times Turkish warships violated Greek territorial waters last year alone - four times more than last year. "3.300 times Turkish fighter jets violated Greek airspace, twice as many as last year," the German newspaper stressed.