Greece Vows to Close U.S. Bases if Turk Clash Erupts

Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou said today that U.S. bases will be closed if hostilities erupt with Turkey over Ankara’s plans to send an oil-drilling ship into a disputed part of the Aegean Sea for seismic tests Saturday.

Asserting that the United States will be to blame if the two old enemies go to war, the Socialist leader said the U.S. Navy communications station at Nea Makri, Hellenikon Air Base outside Athens, a Navy supply base on the island of Crete and an Air Force base at Iraklion could be closed “even before a clash.”

About 3,500 personnel are assigned to the four bases.

Papandreou’s party has pledged to push for removal of the bases, as well as about 20 smaller installations.

At Dardanelles Strait

The exploration ship Sismik-1, which sent Greece and Turkey to the brink a decade ago with a similar voyage, was reported at the Dardanelles Strait ready to sail into Aegean waters Saturday with an escort of Turkish warships. Turkey said it would defend its interests with “all its means.”

Papandreou said: “The Atlantic alliance (NATO), and especially the United States, bears the responsibility for the Aegean developments because they increasingly support Turkish military might.” Both Greece and Turkey belong to NATO.

Greece put the military on alert and ordered naval patrols to cruise off the islands of Samothrace, Lemnos and Mitilini, military sources said.

Military Units Alerted

Turkey said “relevant” military units were alerted. It would not say how many warships would escort the Sismik-1.

Ambassadors of the 16 NATO nations, at an emergency meeting in Brussels, urged the governments to “begin immediate discussions.”

In Washington, State Department spokesman Charles Redman said the United States “regrets any rise in tensions between two friends and allies and we have urged both sides to exercise restraint.”

Papandreou told his Cabinet that the Turkish ship planned to explore in “areas that are 95% clearly part of the Greek continental shelf.”

“The Sismik won’t be allowed to go ahead with seismic research in the Aegean. We have the obligation to protect our country’s borders and our sovereign rights,” he said in a speech at the Cabinet meeting, which was televised later.

Greece Counts Islands

Greece claims nearly all the Aegean continental shelf on the ground that each of its 2,000 Aegean islands is entitled to its own shelf.

Turkey claims that the eastern Greek islands belong to the Turkish continental shelf, extending beyond the Anatolian land mass. It wants mineral rights in the Aegean seabed shared through a negotiated formula.

Brig. Guven Ergenc, a spokesman for the Turkish general staff, said “a sufficient force” of warships would provide the Sismik-1 with “protection in case of any obstruction of the research ship’s duties.”