BREAKING: Turkish NAVTEX for the Abeille Marengo – Ankara writes that the surveys are carried out “with its consent”

A few hours after the Abeille Marengo sailed from Heraklion, Ankara responded with a new notice to mariners, in which it presents the surveys for the Greece–Cyprus electricity interconnector (GSI) as work being done with its own permission. The Navigation, Hydrography and Oceanography Department of the Turkish Navy (SHODB) posted on Tuesday, November 10 message 1127/26, which names the French survey vessel.

In the first item, the Turkish notice says that marine scientific research will be carried out in the Turkish NAVTEX area of responsibility and within the “Turkish continental shelf” of the Eastern Mediterranean, the outer limits of which Ankara communicated to the United Nations on March 18, 2020 with document A/74/757. The work, it continues, will take place along lines that have been “coordinated with the competent Turkish authorities” and for which the “consent of the Turkish authorities” has been obtained.

The second item names the Abeille Marengo and the survey for the laying of a submarine cable, from November 10, 2026 to March 19, 2027. The coordinates of two parallel lines follow, starting at about 35°20′ N and 27°15′ E, south of the Kasos-Karpathos sea area, and ending at 34°08′ N and 32°16′ E, south-west of Cyprus. The notice asks passing ships to keep two nautical miles from the survey vessel and expires at 00:01 UTC on March 20, 2027.

From “cancellation” to “consent”

The wording changes significantly compared with previous Turkish moves. On November 6, with announcement 1105/26 from the Antalya station, Ankara declared that it “has not given its consent” for the works south of Kasos, while the Turkish foreign ministry, in its statement, claimed that it “cancelled” the NAVTEX of Athens and Nicosia and that the process for Turkish consent “has not yet been completed”. With the new message, Ankara presents the process as completed and itself as the authority that approved the surveys.

The Greek position is different. The permit for the survey and laying was granted on November 6 by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, following a request by France’s Nexans on behalf of GSI, and the Heraklion Station issued NAVTEX 1411/26, valid until March 6, 2027. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis repeated on Tuesday that only Greece and Cyprus have given permission and that the French note verbale to Turkey was a notification and not a request for permission.

What is at stake is precisely this difference. If Ankara manages to record that the surveys were carried out “with its consent” in an area that Greece regards as its own continental shelf, it could use that as a precedent for its claims in the Eastern Mediterranean. For Athens, the key is that no impression is created that the works need Turkish approval, as the Abeille Marengo begins calibrating its equipment and the surveys in the areas set by the Greek and Cypriot NAVTEX.

Read the original report in Greek at NEMESIS HD.