This article is more than 9 months old

This article is more than 9 months old

Against a backdrop of spiralling tensions, Greece’s prime minister is to meet his Turkish counterpart in an attempt to ease frictions over energy exploration and Ankara’s deal with Libya on Mediterranean maritime zones.

The Greek government said it hoped the talks between Kyriakos Mitsotakis and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on the sidelines of London’s gathering of Nato leaders could help de-escalate tensions. Wednesday’s meeting will be the first time since assuming office in July that the centre-right Greek leader has met Erdoğan.

“We hope that the meeting tomorrow will be a meeting where it will be possible to pave the way for a new form of respect for international law and for the two countries’ good neighbourly relations,” the spokesman, Stelios Petsas, told reporters.

The controversial agreement delineating boundaries in the Mediterranean was reached between Libya and Turkey last week. Its announcement has triggered widespread condemnation amid fears it would further complicate disputes over drilling for offshore deposits in contested waters around Cyprus. On Tuesday the US State Department called it “unhelpful and provocative”, saying it risked “raising tensions in the eastern Mediterranean at a sensitive time”.

Petsas said in the wake of the deal being declared that Greece had warned Libya’s ambassador to Athens that if he failed to provide clarifications to the Greek government he would be expelled.

Athens has already sought support from the European Union and Nato, which Petsas said “could not stand indifferent when one of its members openly violates international law”.

Mitsotakis said it was “in Turkey’s interest” to rescind what he described as “provocative actions”.

“We will talk with our cards on the table,” he told the country’s state news agency. “Turkey’s attempt to abolish the maritime borders of islands like Crete, Rhodes, Karpathos and Kastelorizo with tricks such as void bilateral memorandums of understanding, will not produce internationally legal results,” he added. “[Ankara] cannot challenge the sovereign rights of our islands, which are enshrined in international law and particularly by the Law of the Sea.”

Athens accuses Ankara, which refuses to recognise the maritime convention, of raising groundless claims against Greece by deliberately disputing the continental shelves of its islands.

Greece and Turkey have come to the brink of war five times since 1967.

Bilateral tensions have once again soared amid bitter exchanges over offshore energy exploration in the eastern Mediterranean and refugees. Ankara has furiously disputed moves by Cyprus – a country it has refused to recognise, acknowledging only the breakaway Turkish-run north – to push ahead with drilling for offshore hydrocarbons.

Last year it dispatched gunboats to prevent an Italian oil company, commissioned by the Greek Cypriot government, from participating in the search for underwater gas deposits.

Far from easing that friction, the Libyan-Turkish deal is likely to exacerbate it in what has become an increasingly turbulent region, political scientists say.

“Athens is very worried because it sees a Turkey now led by a man who is determined to play as hard abroad as he does at home,” said Angelos Syrigos, professor of international law at Panteion University and an MP in the ruling New Democracy party.

“That means employing any and all means, including gunboat diplomacy,” he told the Guardian. “Ankara’s aggression to a great degree has been encouraged by both Washington and Moscow endorsing its invasion of Syria.”