Greek-Turkish crisis of 1987.

Recipient	Supplier	Designation	Description	Weapon Category	Order Year	Number Ordered	Delivery Years
Greece	United States	AIM-9L	short-range air-to-air missile	Missiles	1984	300	1986
Greece	United States	AIM-7E	long-range air-to-air missile	Missiles	1977	100	1978
Greece	France	R-550 Magic	short-range air-to-air missile	Missiles	1974	240	1978
Greece	United States	MIM-23B	SAM	Missiles	1974	96	1977
Greece	France	MILAN	anti-tank missile	Missiles	1974	3000	1983
Greece	United States	TOW	anti-tank missile	Missiles	1977	2000	1979
Greece	United States	Harpoon Block-1	anti-ship missile	Missiles	1982	32	1983
Greece	United States	AGM-65 Maverick	air-to-surface missile	Missiles	1980	200	1983
Greece	United States	TOW	anti-tank missile	Missiles	1984	1097	1987
Greece	United States	AIM-7M	long-range air-to-air missile	Missiles	1983	280	1986
Greece	United States	TOW	anti-tank missile	Missiles	1981	1487	1983
Greece	United States	AIM-7E	long-range air-to-air missile	Missiles	1972	350	1976
Greece	United States	MIM-14	SAM	Missiles	1963	100	1965
Greece	United States	MIM-3	SAM	Missiles	1959	100	1960
Greece	France	MM-38 Exocet	anti-ship missile	Missiles	1971	50	1972
Greece	United States	MIM-23A	SAM	Missiles	1961	500	1964
Greece	United States	AIM-9B Sidewinder	short-range air-to-air missile	Missiles	1961	1250	1970
Greece	France	MM-38 Exocet	anti-ship missile	Missiles	1969	26	1972
Greece	United States	Harpoon Block-1	anti-ship missile	Missiles	1986	32	1988
Greece	United States	AIM-7F Sparrow	long-range air-to-air missile	Missiles	1987	80	1990

Edited June 19, 2025 by Jaroslav

Jaroslav · June 19, 2025

Arms transfers database

Recipient	Supplier	Designation	Description	Weapon Category	Order Year	Number Ordered	Delivery Years
Greece	Italy	Aspide	long-range air-to-air missile/SAM	Missiles	1980	75	1982
Greece	Italy	A-244	anti-submarine torpedo	Missiles	1985	24	1988

Jaroslav · June 19, 2025

Arms transfers database

Recipient	Supplier	Designation	Description	Weapon Category	Order Year	Number Ordered	Delivery Years

Turkiye	United States	Harpoon Block-1	anti-ship missile	Missiles	1982	30	1988
Turkiye	United States	AIM-7E	long-range air-to-air missile	Missiles	1974	200	1977
Turkiye	United States	AIM-9J	short-range air-to-air missile	Missiles	1982	750	1985
Turkiye	Italy	Aspide	long-range air-to-air missile/SAM	Missiles	1986	150	1989
Turkiye	United States	MIM-3	SAM	Missiles	1954	50	1955
Turkiye	United States	MIM-14	SAM	Missiles	1958	524	1964
Turkiye	France	SS-11	anti-tank missile	Missiles	1969	18	1973
Turkiye	United States	TOW	anti-tank missile	Missiles	1971	700	1975
Turkiye	United States	AIM-9B Sidewinder	short-range air-to-air missile	Missiles	1956	600	1958
Turkiye	United States	AIM-7E	long-range air-to-air missile	Missiles	1973	350	1975
Turkiye	United States	AIM-7F Sparrow	long-range air-to-air missile	Missiles	1983	320	1990
Turkiye	United States	AIM-7F Sparrow	long-range air-to-air missile	Missiles	1986	30	1987
Turkiye	United States	Harpoon Block-1	anti-ship missile	Missiles	1982	40	1989
Turkiye	United States	Redeye	portable SAM	Missiles	1985	789	1986
Turkiye	France	AS-12	air-to-surface/anti-ship missile	Missiles	1969	18	1973
Turkiye	France	AS-12	air-to-surface/anti-ship missile	Missiles	1975	18	1977
Turkiye	France	SS-11	anti-tank missile	Missiles	1975	20	1977
Turkiye	Italy	A-244	anti-submarine torpedo	Missiles	1986	50	1988
Turkiye	United States	Mk-44	anti-submarine torpedo	Missiles	1965	100	1968
Turkiye	United States	Mk-37	anti-submarine torpedo	Missiles	1973	28	1978
Turkiye	United States	Mk-37	anti-submarine torpedo	Missiles	1978	28	1989
Turkiye	United States	AIM-4C Falcon	short-range air-to-air missile	Missiles	1968	400	1970
Turkiye	United States	AIM-26B Falcon	short-range air-to-air missile	Missiles	1968	150	1970

Jaroslav · July 2, 2025

Greek Military Intelligence and the Crescent: Estimating the Turkish Threat - Crises, Leadership and Strategic Analyses 1974-1996

Chapter 8: Chapter IV The 1987 Greek-Turkish Crisis

In the mid-1980s, Athens viewed the initiatives of Turkish Prime Minister Ozal with suspicion, while simultaneously having great respect for the Turkish politician’s diplomatic skills. Early in January 1986, at the Davos International Conference in Switzerland, the Greek Prime Minister Papandreou became angry at Ozal’s apparent intention to arrange contacts between them, refusing his direct invitation to a private meeting. Over Christmas 1986, an armed incident had occurred in the Evros area, on the Greek-Turkish border, resulting in the shooting of a Turkish soldier; Prime Minister Ozal continued to propose a dialogue on the two nations’ disputes but Papandreou remained intransigent. He would ‘not discuss anything with [one] exception – the continental shelf dispute, [and] that would have to be resolved by the International Court of

The exploration of oil deposits in the Northern Aegean in the early 1970s created hopes for both Ankara and Athens. Both countries suffered from severe financial problems at the time and both assumed that the Aegean oil could improve their geo-strategic status and national finances. As a result, the continental shelf dispute became an issue of strategic importance; it was no longer just a case of the delimitation of international waters and the extension of territorial rights according to the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention (to which Greece was a signatory, but not Turkey). Certain areas of international waters in the Aegean were regarded as strategic assets, given the assumption that there were abundant oil reserves beneath the seabed. Athens and Ankara viewed each other’s intentions towards the continental shelf with suspicion and both presented a number of legal and political arguments to bolster their claims. Athens was particularly wary of being dragged into political negotiations with Turkey. The greatest threat came in the form of some form of Turkish precedent-setting, an act or decision that might appear to the rest of the world as the exercise of legitimate sovereign rights over the disputed areas. This fear made the work of Greek intelligence all the more difficult – officials had to keep a careful watch on Turkey’s armed forces in case of a surprise attack or some other lesser military operation designed to assert sovereignty. A full-scale invasion was considered a scenario of very low to minimum probability. The Greeks were more afraid of a Turkish provocation that could lead to a crisis and a small-scale incident that would put international pressure on Athens to negotiate a settlement of her disputes with

The starting point of the 1987 Greek-Turkish crisis was the oil exploration programme of Denison Mines Ltd, which was comprised of a group of international companies, had been conducting surveys since 1976 in the Greek territorial waters of the Northern Aegean. Denison Canada held 62% of the shares, Winteshall (Germany) 11.25%, Hellenic Oil (US) 9%, Whiteshield (US) 7% and the Greek Public Oil Company Denison proceeded with a new exploration scheduled for 28th March 1987, at the Mpampouras site located ten nautical miles from the Greek coast , four miles further than the current territorial sea limit.

According to a 1976 agreement with the Greek Ministry of Industry (MoI) Denison’s exploration deadline was 1st April 1987. Papandreou had two options: either allow the exploration to take place, possibly igniting a Greek-Turkish crisis or to terminate Denison’s activities. Ankara continued to argue that the secret 1976 Bern Protocol (in fact a Procès between Greece and Turkey was still in force. The Protocol required both parties to abstain from any activity in the Aegean that would prejudice the settlement of the continental shelf dispute. Papandreou argued however that the Protocol had been inactive since Greek-Turkish discussions had ceased in 1981, with no conclusions. He continued to declare that Greece had sovereign rights over the continental shelf and that Athens would decide ‘when, where and how it would explore the resources of the seabed’. Eventually the Greek Government decided to buy Denison shares in order to control exploration in the In April 1986 during an administrative Papandreou was presented with a proposal by Air Vice-Marshal Philipos Makedos, the NIS director, who argued that Greece could nationalise oil exploration installations by buying Denison’s majority shareholding; Athens would then be able to control any oil-exploration programme on the North Aegean continental shelf. Makedos did not believe that Ankara would identify the newly-nationalised company as an agent of the Greek state. He was wrong. Prime Minister Ozal later admitted, after the March 1987 crisis, that he had been informed by Denison Chairman Stephen Roman (who did not conceal his disagreement with the Greek plan to buy up a majority of Denison shares) that ‘Greece intended to nationalise the company in order to be able to conduct oil surveys on the disputed continental In meetings with the US and Canadian ambassadors, Papandreou claimed that Greece would buy the Denison shares ‘for reasons of maintaining peace’ and that there was ‘no change in Greek policy towards international

In late 1986, the Greek MoD acquired secret intelligence that revealed a ‘Turkish plan’ to spark a crisis in the spring of 1987. According to intelligence sources, the plan had been discussed at the Turkish National Security Council. Ankara would challenge Greek sovereign rights over the continental shelf in order to provoke a response from Athens, forcing the Turkish military to react with a show of force. The political aim of the plan was to persuade Athens to accept that the Bern Protocol was still in force. Intelligence also indicated that the Turks had a clear political strategy and did not intend to provoke armed At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) a top diplomat responsible for Greek-Turkish affairs argued that since the 1976 crisis over the Hora research vessel the Turks had maintained a consistent strategy of provoking crises and potentially ‘hot’ incidents with Greece. By sending the Hora into the Aegean in 1976, the Turks were aiming to stop the negotiations for Greek accession to the EEC – this was the main ‘political benefit’ which Turkish strategy was seeking to secure from the escalated dispute. In the 1980s the Turks followed a similar strategy because, despite their military strength, they ‘felt inferior in political influence and status in Europe in comparison to Greece’. In short, according to Greek estimates, Ankara sought to cause a crisis that might escalate into a ‘hot’ incident that would lead to a political settlement and alter Greece’s favourable legal The threat was therefore not of an invasion or a surprise attack, but of a political settlement, which the Greeks had to avoid by all the means at their disposal.

In December 1986 Greek diplomats belatedly realised that Denison had conducted oil exploration once already, in 1982, in the continental shelf area of international waters in the Aegean claimed by Greece, despite the protests of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. However the Turks had not threatened Greece with military action on that Surprisingly, the Ministry of Industry (MoI) kept the MFA and the MoD in the dark, UnderSecretary Kapses of the MFA admitting that the MoI was not required by law to inform the MFA about oil exploration. This lack of basic intelligence-sharing revealed serious inefficiencies among Greek government organisations on this delicate issue. Moreover, until mid-February 1987, when the Secretary for Industry, Anastasios Peponis, announced in public the acquisition of the Denison shareholding, the MFA and UnderSecretary Kapses were not informed of Papandreou’s intentions for purchasing the Denison shares. According to Kapses, Secretaries Charalampopoulos and Papoulias were all kept equally in the dark. Papandreou adopted the scheme entirely in secret, surprising everyone in the Papandreou’s secretive behaviour still causes researchers serious problems in locating evidence, thereby assessing his leadership and understanding his policy priorities towards Turkey in early 1987.

The Greek government assessment of the threat from Denison’s activities in the Aegean was influenced by interviews with the company’s executives. Apparently, they had no intention of selling Denison’s rights in the Aegean, declaring that they were simply ‘oil gamblers’ (according to Kapses) and that ‘this [oil drilling in the continental shelf] was not a Greek-Turkish problem’. In press conferences, the executives stated vaguely that they had intelligence from ‘US and Canadian sources that confirmed that no Greek-Turkish problem’ could arise from their exploration projects in the Aegean. What was even more alarming for the Greek administration, was the Denison representatives claim that they could resume their surveys ‘in the case of a government change’. Some in the cabinet assumed that there was a joint Denison-US plan of ‘destabilisation against Papandreou with the participation of Turkey’. This hypothesis, formed in certain PASOK nationalist milieu, claimed that a crisis would force Papandreou to follow a conciliatory line on the continental shelf dispute, ‘allowing’ Turkish exploration in the Greek-claimed continental shelf. In such a case, it was predicted that Papandreou ‘would be forced to resign under the pressures of a nationalist public opinion’. Eventually, the ‘new [conservative] Greek administration would allow Denison to continue the exploration It all sounded like a conspiracy theory, but putting the blame always on the Americans or Turkey was a constant aspect of 1980s propaganda.

On 28th February 1987, UnderSecretary Kapses and Turkish Ambassador Nazmi Akiman had a meeting at the Greek MFA. The Turkish diplomat argued that the Bern Protocol demanded that both countries abstained from oil research beyond the six-nautical-mile territorial limit. Ankara ‘would react’ if Greece went ahead with the oil exploration. UnderSecretary Kapses argued that the Bern Protocol was no longer in force and thus was no longer binding for Athens, repeating that ‘the means, the time and the location of oil drilling would be of our choosing’. However he admitted that Greece could not proceed with drilling in March because the relevant equipment was defective and had been left in the port of Piraeus. The Turkish Ambassador reported to Ankara that Athens was aiming to take ‘unilateral action’ over the continental shelf. The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs became anxious about Greek intentions and the US Ambassador in Ankara contacted his counterpart in Athens, Robert Keeley, to inform him of the gloomy Turkish assessment. (Since autumn 1986 Keeley had been in contact with Secretary Peponis and Denison, trying to find a settlement between the latter and the Greek

The next day, the MFA, attempting to calm Turkish fears, leaked to the press a Greek Coast Guard plan to stop Denison’s oil exploration in the Northern Aegean without government The nationalistic style of UnderSecretary Kapses however and the inaccurate reporting of Ambassador Akiman, caused Ankara to review its crisis plans and According to a top diplomat at the MFA at that time, Ambassador Akiman had a tendency to select the more ‘aggressive’ words and phrases of UnderSecretary Kapses, separating them from the main line of Greek foreign policy towards Turkey. The reporting of Ambassador Akiman to Ankara was considered unreliable because he ‘painted a picture of a hostile and unilateralist Greece’, transmitting to Ankara a Greek ‘climate’ different from the

On 5th March 1987, Athens was informed by its Embassy in Ankara of an emergency meeting of the Turkish National Security Council. Officials of the Turkish Ministries of Defence and Foreign Affairs examined the continental shelf dispute with reference to the latest Greek decisions (i.e. the project to buy shares in Denison). UnderSecretary Kapses assumed that the Turks had been preparing something but he predicted that they would only retaliate in kind in the event of a Greek oil-exploration survey and that they would certainly not initiate provocative

The main perceived threat to Greek national security in 1987 was a Turkish intention of leading Athens to admit that the 1976 Bern Protocol did indeed remain in force, despite Papandreou’s denials. The key field for Greek intelligence research and analysis in early 1987 was Ankara’s armed forces. Undoubtedly we can assume that the Turks intentions could be read from the deployment of their armed forces and from their foreign-policy positions. Denison was a peculiar factor in this crisis, at least in public. Papandreou and UnderSecretary Kapses assigned great influence to the company, estimating that it kept both the Americans and the Turks informed and might have co-operated with them against Greece.

Intelligence on Turkish research intentions

Greek perceptions during the crisis were shaped not only by Turkish military deployments and operational planning but also by the routes of the Turkish research vessels Pirireis and Sismik 1 (the latter being none other than the Hora from 1976, now renamed). Both ships were dispatched to the international waters of the continental shelf claimed by Greece. Athens interpreted and forecast the Turkish crisis intentions on the basis of the course the vessels were following and on 19th March the Greek MoD and MFA’s assessment reached the conclusion that the Turks were acting in a ‘provocative way’. Kapses referred to three main aspects of the Turkish behaviour. First, Pirireis was escorted by two warships; second, though the vessels remained outside Greek territorial waters they ‘circled’ the islands of Lemnos, Samothraki and Thasos and approached to a point 12 nautical miles off the coast of Athos, on the mainland of Northern Greece. Third, on five occasions the Turks conducted seabed explorations without asking permission of the coastal state, Greece, as demanded by the latest Law of the Sea Convention. Ankara had already made public the exploration areas of Pirireis and Sismik 1 and Athens realised that 95% of the Greek-claimed continental shelf was within the area to be explored by the Turkish scientific A few days later, on 21st March, Pirireis returned to Turkish territorial waters.

The MoD judged that the Turks had anticipated a Greek reaction against their exploration company, while the Greek Admirals assumed that the accompanying warships showed Turkish willingness to react in the event of a Greek attempt to intercept Ships of the Hellenic Navy had been ordered to monitor the course of the Turkish ship as the MoD considered there to have been a challenge to the Greek continental shelf in international waters. Admiral Lemperes, Chief of the Fleet, formulated an estimate that combined both political and legal arguments and not operational military threat-criteria (i.e. Turkish force composition, weaponry, potential military objectives and tactical intentions). According to Lemperes, the fact that Turkey had not asked for the coastal state’s permission ‘proved that she had violated International Law and sought political concessions from Meanwhile, the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs officially protested at the ‘harassment of the exploration vessel by Greek

Greek and Turkish rhetoric as intelligence signals

Turkish Prime Minister Ozal, on 19th March, in a US press interview, stated that Greece ‘created all her problems herself’. Earlier, on 18th March, he declared that:

‘Turkey is willing to fight for her sovereign rights over the Aegean continental shelf. Greece was the country who always attacked Turkey and who had always been defeated. The first time Turkey stopped Greek aggression was in Cyprus. Greece, since her establishment as a state, had caused problems for Turkey and Prime Minister Papandreou is declaring Turkey the greatest enemy of

On 20th March, the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement on the Turkish diplomatic reaction to Greek decisions. Ankara ‘would start to inform foreign embassies and world opinion to point out that Turkey would not be responsible for any problems caused. The Turkish General Staff would start relevant

On 26th March Turkish officials stated that the Sismik exploration vessel, accompanied by ‘seven warships,’ would conduct seismological surveys in the areas of international waters claimed by Turkey. The Turkish warning was clear: ‘In the event of harassment by Greek ships, there would be a dynamic Turkish response’. On the same day, the Secretary of the Turkish National Security Council, General Ergentlan, stated that ‘the Turkish Armed Forces have been put on stand-by’ and that ‘all necessary measures have been taken. If there is a Greek attack against the it will be characterised as a hostile act and an act of war’. Admiral Lemperes assumed that this statement confirmed the secret intelligence he had received months ago: Turkey was seeking to cause a crisis in order to accuse Greece of provocation. Ultimately, Turkey aimed to draw Athens into a dialogue over Greek sovereign rights in the

Meanwhile, Ambassador Noujeht Kademir, UnderSecretary in the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, issued a statement on the assessment he had submitted to the National Security Council. The main points of this statement included accusations that Greece assumed the Aegean to be ‘a Greek lake’ and referred to Turkish fears of the expansion of Greek territorial waters to 12 nautical miles: ‘This expansion, which would close off the Aegean to Turkey, is considered a cause for war. Greece knows that and is waiting for an

Turkish diplomacy was interested in preserving Turkish rights over the Aegean Sea oil deposits. Kademir continued:

‘The seabed is rich. Greece claims that 97% of the continental shelf belongs to her. It is necessary [for us] to send our exploration vessel. This move is a counter-measure to what Greece has done so far. If we continue implementing the Bern Agreement [the Bern Protocol] while Athens ignores it, the seabed deposits will be lost to us. By any means and regardless of the consequences, our seismological vessel must be present in the drilling areas. Moreover, we are in favour of sending out the exploration vessel Hora that was in the Aegean during the 1976

Later that day, a spokesman for the Turkish administration stated:

‘In contrast to Turkey, Greece is implementing an expansionist foreign policy. The last example is the Greek oil-drilling plans. The National Security Council has decided to respond dynamically to Greece, which intends to turn the Aegean into her sovereign

At the same time, the Chief of the Turkish Fleet, Admiral Orhan Karabülüt, boasted: ‘We are ready for any surprise in the Aegean. Our training is superior. We will do our On 27th March, the Deputy Head of the Turkish Army General Staff, Lieutenant-General Güven Ergieds, claimed during a press interview that: ‘The Sismik exploration vessel would be accompanied by warships in the Aegean. The vessel herself is equipped with protective equipment. In the event of an incursion in her mission, the warships will defend

The Turkish Secretary of Defence claimed in another interview that ‘estimating the casualty patterns of a general war, Turkey has the capability to resist for five to seven

On 26th March, at 20:00 p.m, Prime Minister Ozal appeared on Turkish TV (while in the US) and announced:

‘If Greece continues to violate the Bern Agreement by conducting oil exploration in the Aegean, she is asking for trouble... Turkey is a powerful country. We know how to confront any problem. We are powerful; that is why our neighbours are causing problems. We don’t have to be influenced by the intentions of others. We don’t have aspirations on the territories of any country. We try to solve problems by maintaining good relations. However it has to be understood that we can leave nothing unsurveyed... Greece views with anxiety the increase in Turkey’s population, which in five years will reach 70

There was a gap between the Turks’ aggressive official rhetoric and the facts of their military mobilisation. While the Turkish media sided with and propagated the arguments and positions of Ankara, Greek military intelligence in time confirmed the effective passivity of the Turkish military machine during the

On 27th March in Athens, Papandreou summoned KYSEA (the Administration’s top crisis-management body) and later on the same day his cabinet. His speech to them was published and broadcast. The Prime Minister commented that ‘the sending of Turkish exploration vessels constituted a provocation on the part of Turkey, given the threats made by Turkish officials against Greece’. Papandreou implied that Prime Minister Ozal was not in control of his administration because he had been in the USA for medical treatment: ‘The Turkish prime minister departed from the United States yesterday, just after the decision of the National Security Council in Ankara to send out the exploration vessel Sismik He added that the US Defence Secretary Caspar Weinberger had visited Ankara for six days in mid-March and that his Assistant Secretary Richard Perle had been there for even longer. Papandreou stated that the Turks had chosen to explore ‘95%’ of the continental shelf claimed by Greece. The Greek politician repeated the contention that, according to the Convention on the Law of the Sea, islands could claim entitlement to a continental shelf, despite Turkish arguments to the contrary. Papandreou claimed that any exploration of the Greek continental shelf ‘means violation of our country’s sovereign rights. It is the first step toward the division of the Aegean... in essence, with this [Turkish] exploration map they are promoting the division of the Aegean’. He continued: ‘Until yesterday Turkey accused Greece of not abiding by the Bern Protocol. Now Turkey is massively violating the Protocol [by sending the exploration vessels into the Aegean]’.

In a passage worth reproducing here in full because of what it reveals about his thinking and his rhetoric, the Greek Prime Minister declared:

‘Due to the seriousness of the situation, I briefed the President of the Republic yesterday. Today, the President will be updated by the Vice President of the administration and Defence Secretary Mr Charalampopoulos, who will also brief the leaders of the political parties... The KYSEA decision demands that Turkish seismological research will not be permitted. We have a duty to defend the borders of our country, to defend our sovereign rights. The continental shelf is not a border; I am referring to our borders and our sovereign rights...

Turkey constantly asks for dialogue. I stress that the only legal issue is the continental shelf – its delimitation, not its division. There is a great difference between dividing, following political and military equality and delimitating, which is a clear legal act. We have already called and I repeat it again now, for Turkey to go ahead and accept our proposal to bring this issue to the Hague [the International Court of Justice]... It is not possible to have political dialogue with Turkey on other issues, because they are politics that refer exclusively to Greek sovereign rights being ceded to Turkey. This is not dialogue: it is a message from the victor to the vanquished. We do not accept such messages. Greece is not defeated. We do not ask for US and NATO arbitration. We ask NATO and especially the US to assume their responsibilities. We stress that they are responsible for the Aegean developments because they are not only increasingly supporting Turkey’s military power but are also tolerating and even covering up illegal Turkish actions, like the Army of occupation in Northern Cyprus... The consequences [of a Greek-Turkish crisis or conflict] would be cataclysmic for the alliance [NATO]. It is not possible to discuss [with Washington] over the Voice of America [the US-Greek talks on the Voice of America broadcasting station in Greece]; it is not possible to discuss the future of Greek and American military relations when Turkey is given the green light to proceed with absurdities that represent a huge danger for Turkey, Greece and the Balkans... If this [crisis] is a plan either by NATO or the US to force Greece, via a dynamic Turkish presence in the Aegean, to a seat at the negotiation table, if this is the goal, then this administration will not accept this. I would like to make this clear... I would like to inform you also that today the Secretary for Foreign Affairs Carolos Papoulias is meeting with the President Zhivkov of Bulgaria, transmitting on my behalf a very important message. As you know, there is a non-aggression pact [between Greece and Bulgaria] that demands that Teodor Zhivkov, with whom I certainly have a close friendship, be immediately informed... The military preparation of the country is capable as of this moment to teach a tough lesson if our neighbours go ahead with their activities. I would like to emphasise the determination of our administration. This is a time that demands psychological unity, a time when the people have to join the armed forces in the fight – although all of us hope that this [crisis] will end peacefully because peace is secured only when you are determined and ready to counter the

Papandreou’s speech was a fine example of his charismatic nationalist rhetoric. In essence, Papandreou publicly accused the US of staging a crisis by tolerating and using an aggressive Turkey. The US-NATO-Turkish aim was to force Greece to the negotiating table in order for Athens to cede sovereign rights in the Aegean. The speech is full of accusations of an international conspiracy. We cannot have access to NIS files in order to verify if Greek intelligence truly had secret information that supported the claims of a US or NATO ‘hand’ in the Greek-Turkish crisis. But a former Secretary of State and a top diplomat denied the possibility of a Denison plot against Papandreou’s administration. Actually, Denison seemed to be uninterested in Greek-Turkish affairs and Greek sovereign The company’s chairman, Roman, said: ‘I have survived many governments, I will survive this one’. This type of statement did not uncover or prove the existence of a secret plan against Papandreou. On the contrary UnderSecretary Kapses, Air Marshal Koures and Admiral Lemperes argued about ‘the foreign centres [of power, including secret services] that worked against Greek interests’. The possibility of a conspiracy against Greece ‘would be an exaggeration of Denison’s intentions’, remarked the former Secretary of State.

Papandreou’s anti-US rhetoric was accepted at face value by the pro-PASOK media and by the pro-PASOK and leftist public opinion. The reference to the ‘Bulgarian visit’ created the impression of a new alliance: Athens was ‘willing’ to ignore NATO and to ‘get ready to fight’ together with communist Bulgaria against Turkey, a fellow-member of NATO.

Meanwhile, the Greek MFA contacted NATO Secretary-General Lord Carrington and US State Department Secretary George Shultz to inform them of the seriousness of the situation. According to Secretary Charalampopoulos and Koures, Lord Carrington mediated positively in NATO in order to avert an escalation of the crisis. He was willing to contain the Greek-Turkish dispute and had enjoyed ‘good relations’ with Charalampopoulos since 1981, when the Greek politician was assigned to the

The military intelligence front - the tactical level

On Tuesday 24th March the Commanding Officer of the Greek 3rd Special Forces Division ordered the Director of Operations (Directorate for Joint Operations), to issue orders for special forces (paratroopers, marines and rangers) and Army units. The latter were responsible for joint deployment plans, co-operating with all General Staff echelons (the Navy, Air Force and Army and the National Defence General Staff). The Greek units had to be transported by air and sea to the five large Greek islands in the Eastern and take up defensive positions there; the mobilisation had to be completed by early morning on Saturday 28th March. The Greek Generals assumed that by 11 a.m on that day the Sismik would have sailed into the waters over the Aegean continental shelf, thus marking ‘war time’. Orders were transmitted to all units by 22:00 p.m on 25th March (Greek National Independence Day). The Director of Operations commented that the top Greek officers were in crisis mode for at least ten days, but he, in spite of his position, had not received any indications of the Turkish armed forces’ intentions. There was ‘a gap in intelligence of Turkish capabilities and intentions – perhaps because the Turks had done nothing,’ for the past 10 days, despite the official Turkish rhetoric against

In Athens the MoD’s preparations had been frantic but one Major-General realised that the orders ‘for defending Greek sovereign rights on the continental shelf’ had been In comparison to orders for defending islands from possible invasion, the directive on ‘defending the sovereign sea-rights’ looked far too vague to fulfill the requirements of a tactical deployment. Meanwhile, on 25th March, the top diplomat responsible for Greek-Turkish affairs paid a visit to the MoD, following an unofficial invitation the day before from Air Marshal Koures. In fact, prior to Koures’s offer, the diplomat had not intended to visit the MoD, since he had no fear of a Greek-Turkish conflict – he had consulted widely on the continental shelf dispute and on the Denison question, but by 24th March he ‘was not unduly alarmed’ by the course of Greek-Turkish relations. At the time, the diplomat’s assessment was that the ‘framework of relations’ between Greece and Turkey and within the NATO and EEC structures, would avert a Greek-Turkish ‘classic

This diplomat then witnessed the determinative actions of the military professionals – the Greek Generals and their staff – staying in the MoD for almost 20 hours. When on the same day he met with Defence Secretary Charalampopoulos, he warned him that the military ‘had been aiming to take revenge for the Cyprus tragedy’ and ‘to clear from the name of the Greek military the stain of the 1974 debacle’ and that ‘this military machine had gained momentum which could not be stopped in time if there was an arrangement to defuse the crisis’. Charalampopoulos listened to these remarks with surprise and alarm and asked to be left alone to make a telephone call; the ambassador assumed that he was calling the Prime Minister to pass on the

In the evening of 26th March, the Chief of the Navy General Staff (and later NIS Director during the 1996 Greek-Turkish crisis), Rear-Admiral Leonidas Vasilikopoulos, summoned the Supreme Navy Council and briefed his admirals on the intentions of the Papandreou administration towards the Turkish exploration plans. The council called for the massive mobilisation of ships, naval bases and personnel. That evening, the alert sounded at the main naval base in Salamina, near Athens and the commanding officer of the Fast Boat Command was told by Vasilikopoulos ‘to prepare his forces’ for deployment in the

By 0248 on 27th March, the Navy General Staff declared ‘a situation of military counter-surprise’ for all Greek naval units, with the exception only of those based in the Ionian Sea. This ‘situation’ meant that the Navy had to be prepared for the ‘possible danger’ of Turkish military action within the next 36 The operational plans assigned primary importance to the initial dispatch of small missile and torpedo boats, then of submarines, frigates, destroyers and auxiliary ships, in that order. The missile boats were to find hidden locations around the Greek islands from which they could emerge to challenge any Turkish naval activity. Chief of the Fleet Rear-Admiral Lemperes (later Admiral and Chief of the National Defence General Staff) kept in mind that the Greek islands in the Eastern Aegean were some 240 nautical miles from Salamina, so the dispatch of the naval task force had to take place immediately. The Navy commanders were ordered ‘to defend Greek sovereign rights’ over the continental shelf. Meanwhile the Hellenic Navy aimed to locate any Turkish submarines in the Aegean. According to their rules of engagement, the Greek ships ‘had been free’ to use weapons systems against Turkish ships if the latter’s behaviour indicated hostile intent. At 0404, three destroyers were ordered to leave for the island of Skyros (Northern Aegean) at 0830. At 0800, six S-209 submarines left Salamina for the Northern and Central Aegean. Two other Greek submarines, which were participating in NATO’s Exercise ‘Dog-Fish’ in the central Mediterranean, were recalled and in the evening of 28 March entered the Aegean. Lemperes and Vasilikopoulos assigned importance to covering possible Turkish reactions and concentrating their firepower in case of escalation. Almost 65 warships and auxiliary vessels were mobilised on 27th and 28th

By 1000 on 27th March, the head of the Fast Boat Command, with his torpedo and missile boats, was off the coasts of Lemnos island. The first wave of the Hellenic Navy ships were assigned to the ‘walls of the Aegean’: the Lemnos area and the area west of Militini island were considered ‘keys’ in a Greek-Turkish naval war. The Hellenic Navy could intercept the Turkish ships coming out from its bases in the Sea of Marmara and Izmir. In 1987 Turkey had not yet built the Aksaz naval base (in South Western Anatolia) and the North Eastern Aegean was considered the ‘centre of gravity’ for Aegean naval warfare. The Turkish military must have been surprised by the rapid Greek deployment and ‘must have assumed that any Turkish naval initiative would be

The ships of the Greek task force were in three groups. The first was assigned the ‘close surveillance’ of Sismik when she appeared in the Northern Aegean. The second group operated in the central Aegean, escorting 11 fleet auxiliary ships that transported war materiel and troops to key Aegean islands. The third group patrolled around the islands of the Cyclades and Sporades in the South Western Aegean, ready to undertake either support or offensive operations. Meanwhile, Navy AB-212 and Allouette III helicopters and Albatross fixed-wing aircraft provided daytime air-cover for the Greek task force. In parallel, a special signals-intelligence aircraft operated over the Eastern Aegean. By 1145 on 27th March, the ships were ordered to limit electronic emissions, for security reasons. Lemperes ordered his commanders to be ready to implement plans for electronic warfare – to Turkish military intelligence, this was another signal of Greek

In the evening of 27th March, Prime Minister Ozal, on his way back from the US, appeared on the BBC in London. The Turkish leader stated:

‘There is no reason for tension. Turkey will not proceed to explore in the disputed areas, if Greece would not initiate exploration... if they [the Greeks] do not go out of their territorial waters, then we will also not go out. The moment they go out, we will also go out. If they move against us, then we will respond... The exploration vessel and our warships will remain within our territorial

Ozal had de-escalated the crisis, but Papandreou remained cautious. Contemporary Greek and European diplomatic correspondents have argued wrongly that Turkey ‘was deterred and backed In fact, Turkey followed a crisis-management strategy which aimed to underline Ankara’s political intentions, but without leading to the brink of military confrontation with Greece; Turkey was not ‘deterred’ by the Hellenic Navy from her plans and positions on the Aegean continental shelf.

At 0005 on 28th March, Lemperes, aboard the frigate Lemnos, sent his first assessment report:

The political-military situation in the Aegean for the Hellenic fleet is understood as tension without hot incidents. The Turkish naval deployment in the Northern Aegean is expected to be reinforced. Until now, there is no indication of an enemy submarine presence in the area. The deployment of two to three [Turkish] submarines in the Northern and Central Aegean, in sectors vital to Greek naval communications is deemed a possibility. The [fleet’s] preparedness level is high. Morale is high. We remain prepared for undertaking forward

At 0130 the Greek torpedo boats discovered a London-registered motor-ship named Portsmouth at sea off Chios island near the Greek ships. The Greek commanding officer assumed that the ship had been collecting signals and that her captain had switched on her deck lights to show beyond any doubt that she was not a Turkish vessel. Later, a Greek torpedo boat approached Turkish territorial waters and discovered that the Turkish fleet had mobilised two defensive patrol-groups in the Gulf of Izmir (though they were in fact deployed ten nautical miles within the gulf and thus not near the international waters). Another torpedo boat off Chios intercepted Turkish Air Force communications. Turkish aircraft had been flying from south-east to north-west and (surprisingly) were using the ‘identification friend or foe’ (IFF) system within Turkish airspace; an indication of Turkish anxiety of Greek intentions, at least according to this

By 0630 the Sismik with only two warships, not seven as broadcast by the Greek and Turkish media, sailed from Çanak Kale back into the Turkish territorial waters of the Aegean and then to the Gulf of Gallipoli. At 2130 she anchored in the port of Imvros island,

By 28th March, Lemperes’s frigate, Lemnos, had joined the group of ships in the Northern Aegean. What is clear is that the Turkish armed forces did not react to the massive Greek mobilisation. In the evening, Rear-Admiral Vasilikopoulos contacted Lemperes, Vasilikopoulos stated that:

‘The situation is developing evenly. The Turkish ambassador promised the Secretary for Foreign Affairs that [the course of] the Sismik exploration vessel would be limited to the Turkish continental shelf. We will watch the situation with caution. We retain a high level of preparedness and determination, but in parallel, provocations should be avoided. [Greek provocations] may be used as a pretext for a new

At 1800 on 27th March Foreign Secretary Carolos Papoulias returned from Bulgaria. He informed the Greek prime minister that President Zhivkov was even willing to ‘allow Greek forces to pass over Bulgarian soil in order to encircle the Turkish forces’ and that Bulgaria’s relations with Athens would remain friendly. Zhivkov seemed to be ‘afraid of the expansive intentions of Turkey’ and assumed that a Bulgarian diplomatic initiative over the crisis would cause ‘the two superpowers to intervene in a Greek-Turkish However no minutes were taken and the Greek Ambassador in Sofia did not attend the strictly confidential meeting between Papoulias and One senior diplomat at the MFA ‘did not believe’ that Zhivkov had made any commitments to Greece and disputed the belief of other government officials in ‘a Bulgarian acceptance of Greek troops encircling Turkey’. However the Papoulias-Zhivkov meeting had some propaganda value for domestic and foreign

Meanwhile, NIS Deputy Director (later Director) Tsimas had received personal instructions from Papandreou to visit Syria and Iraq, keeping his mission secret even from his department. During the Greek-Turkish crisis Tsimas held secret discussions with the heads of the Syrian and Iraqi intelligence services. Damascus claimed that Syria would ally herself with Greece in the event of a war with Turkey. The Syrians, apprehensive of good Israeli-Turkish relations, sought to secure a guarantee that Greece would veto any potential NATO action against their country. The Iraqi intelligence officials argued, for their part, that the Iran-Iraq war, which was still raging, limited their military options but they seemed willing to deploy some forces near the Iraq-Turkish border simply to alarm Ankara and to force the Turkish General Staff to retain a large ground force on the

At 2305 on 28th March, Rear-Admiral Lemperes sent a new situation report to naval headquarters in Athens. The Sismik remained in Turkish waters with a ‘weak’ escort ‘indicating waiting intentions’. Lemperes estimated that ‘the current [Greek] ship deployments and rules of engagement met operational requirements’. He demanded that efforts be made to discover Turkey’s intentions. ‘[We] need intercepts and the analysis of [public] statements. The preparedness of the [Greek] units has to remain high.’ During these hours, the Greek second and third ship units sailed to Northern Sporades and Cyclades islands, while the first remained in the Northern Aegean. For its part, Turkish naval intelligence was attempting to plot the exact positions of the Greek ships and their command vessels.

In the early morning of 29th March the Turks dispatched tactical-reconnaissance aircraft to locate Greek

Sunday 29 March was a ‘good day’ for Hellenic Navy and Air Force co-ordination in the Aegean, with no discernable change in the tactical situation. In the early hours of the following day, however Greek naval intelligence discovered a Turkish S-209 submarine positioned east of Tinos island (in the Cyclades) in international waters. At 1130 Rear-Admiral Lemperes sent another situation report to the Navy General Staff:

‘The current tactical situation in the Aegean is covered adequately by the deployment of [Greek] naval forces... a [Turkish] tactical surprise has low probability. Strategic intelligence, as received, does not give us a picture of the mobilisation of Turkish naval units, their level of preparedness or changes in their communication patterns. The identification of one Turkish submarine off Tinos [island] justifies the estimate that two to three submarines have been deployed in the Aegean. The Turkish ships are using covert communication methods. Turkish merchant ships that sail into our axis of concentration, even if accidentally, are damaging for us... The situation assessment of the Chief of the Fleet states that Turkey will insist on the policy of mutual restraint over the disputed continental shelf, while at the same time she will initiate oil exploration in her territorial seabed. Turkey will maintain the current level of presence, patrolling the East Aegean with ships, aircraft and [coastal] station surveillance. Turkey will not link the dispute over air-space limits with the issue of refraining from exploration in the disputed continental shelf. Violations [of the FIR in the Aegean] and infringements [of national airspace] are expected. We suggest that the increased [Greek] naval presence and preparedness be maintained in the

On 31th March, the Sismik left Imvros and sailing in Turkish territorial waters, returned to Çanak At 1540 that day, Hellenic Navy commanders received new instructions from Navy General Staff for the gradual withdrawal of their ships from the Northern and Central Aegean. The landing-craft and torpedo boats withdrew first; the frigates, destroyers, missile boats and the heavy-transport vessels remained, because the naval groups’ assignments were readjusted. The latest orders required ‘a Navy presence with appropriate units deployed and prepared to counter any possible Turkish actions’. At 2158 Athens received Lemperes’ final situation report: ‘There is nothing new in Turkey’s behaviour. The [bad] weather limits our aircraft patrols’. On 1st April the General Staff ordered the majority of the ships to return to their bases. Only three destroyers remained on patrol in the Northern Aegean and they returned to the Salamina base a few days later after participating in ‘Poseidon-Zeus 87’, a small-scale naval exercise around Samos island.

The Turkish military threat and Greek assessments

Up to the present day, one of the most controversial issues remains the reality of the Turkish military threat during the 1987 crisis. Prime Minister Papandreou and the PASOK leaders, as well as some Greek academics, have argued that Greece ‘deterred’ Turkey. The interviews with top officials and a close reading of memoirs so far indicate that the Turkish Armed Forces were not mobilised during the crisis (despite the hostile rhetoric of Ankara officials) and that they there was no tactical or operational threat to the Greek naval units in the Northern and Central Aegean. Athens assumed that Ankara was prioritising political rather than military goals (not envisaging the invasion and occupation of Greek territory). Ankara did not aim to fight but to use the Sismik expedition as a means of drawing Athens into a political settlement of the continental shelf dispute.

Defence Secretary Charalampopoulos claimed that Turkey put the 1st Army (in Thrace, on the Greek-Turkish border) ‘on alert’ and that the 4th (Aegean) Army was put ‘on stand-by for immediate departure’. Meanwhile, the Turkish fleet ‘had been gathering in the Sea of Marmara and the Turkish Air Force had been re-stationing aircraft in West Anatolia, ready to react in case of a however no further details were provided in his book Critical Years (2002). The Chief of the National Defence General Staff, Air Marshal Koures, gave the same general and vague description as Charalampopoulos despite the perceived seriousness of the crisis for Greek-Turkish relations. Koures added a cryptic sentence that gives us a clue about his intelligence perception at the time: during the crisis ‘the usual petty differences in the estimates of the branches of the armed forces had no place in times of national Unfortunately, Koures did not provide a definition of ‘petty differences’ or an account of the quality of intelligence-reporting during the crisis. We can assume that his phrase about the ‘petty differences’ in estimates reflected his way of thinking. It is the author’s understanding that Koures thought debates over crisis intelligence were ‘divisive’ for the armed services.

Admiral Lemperes wrote that ‘the Turkish air and naval presence was very limited’. Only after the crisis did the Turks increase their presence in the international waters of the Northern and Central Aegean. The Turkish Navy General Staff sent patrols to the Northern Aegean near Imvros island (Turkey), Thasos island (Greece), Athos (mainland Greece) and Lemnos island (Greece). However ‘on the high seas there was no Turkish group for offensive operations’. Greek tactical image-intelligence operations did not locate Turkish missile boats on the Anatolian coast, but Lemperes believed that such vessels ‘could possibly be hiding there’. In the Gulfs of Smyrna (Izmir) and Fokaia, the Turks had gathered a ‘significant number’ of landing-craft. Lemperes commented that:

‘The behaviour of the Turks [during the crisis] was not provocative. They appeared rather cautious or even scared; there was no harassment of Greek warships or merchant ships. We were concerned about the Turkish imagery- and signals-intelligence operations or by the presence of Turkish merchant ships in the sea sectors where Greek ships were gathered and about the positions of Turkish submarines and the use of Sea Skua missiles from Turkish Navy helicopters... in tactical terms we had a clear picture. Our strategic [intelligence] picture had gaps. The Chief of the Fleet had no overall picture of the Turkish armed forces, of their intentions, of the politics game... Despite the low Turkish presence, nothing could have guaranteed us that the Turks would not have decided on their fleet leaving its bases in due course. The Turkish armed forces had been put on

Lemperes argued that from the 1987 crisis the Turks could have learned the political-military plan dictating how Greece would react during a potential conflict over the continental shelf. Lemperes claimed that the ‘non-exit’ of the Turkish ships in the Aegean had been in accordance with a decision of the Turkish General Staff, in response to the ‘political development’ of the crisis. Lemperes stressed that the Turkish behaviour was influenced by the ‘determinative stance’ of the Greek government to use sea power to defend Greek sovereign

UnderSecretary Kapses wrote in his book The Three Days of March (1990) that on 27th March he received a ‘secret report’ that described the Turkish military mobilisation as ‘a phenomenon unseen in the last few years’. The Turkish naval units, participating in an exercise in the Black Sea, were heading towards the Sea of Marmara. ‘All’ Turkish submarines were in the Aegean. Kapses added that ‘the intelligence analysis of Greek and other foreign intelligence services claimed that Ankara sought, through a major provocation, to compel Athens to accept the Bern Protocol and to draw Greece to the negotiating table for all Greek-Turkish disputes’. The UnderSecretary did not comment further on the ‘foreign intelligence services’, but another top intelligence source admitted that there was unofficial Greek-Bulgarian intelligence-sharing in the Kapses also boasted that ‘the Turkish intelligence service, MIT, had put the Greek diplomatic personnel in Ankara and Istanbul under covert surveillance – a measure taken by governments against the diplomatic staff of the opponent on the eve of Another former Secretary of State (who served in the administration during the crisis) commented that Kapses’s book has ‘inaccuracies’ and a certain ‘journalistic sensationalist Kapses’s information on the Turkish deployments during the crisis is proved false by the accounts of Admiral Lemperes and a Major-General with direct knowledge of the crisis. Moreover, Kapses mentions a Turkish naval exercise, ‘Sea confusing his readers by creating the impression that the exercise took place in the Aegean, while in fact it was planned for the Black Sea. Lemperes, who served aboard a warship in the Aegean during the crisis, makes no mention of a Turkish naval exercise.

A former top NIS official admitted that there was no Turkish military threat to Greece during the crisis and that Papandreou was constantly reassured by intelligence ‘even out of the Turkish National Security Council’. Indeed Papandreou, although an insecure personality, felt no anxiety during the 1987 crisis about a possible Greek-Turkish Another former NIS director simply argued:

‘There was no need for Turkey to transfer troops, because the Aegean Army had already been deployed on the coast of Asia Minor for many years. With one signal, they [the Turks] could jump in their boats and start [an invasion]. There was no need to transfer forces to the Aegean, because they had been ready for many

For the Major-General who attended the dramatic consultations, ‘there was no Greek deterrence’. The Turks had observed the massive Greek mobilisation without apprehension: they were not afraid of a Greek attack. The mobilisation had been of a defensive rather than offensive nature. The Turks were confident that the Turkish 1st Army in Eastern Thrace could only be threatened if there was a general mobilisation of the Greek 4th Army in Northern Greece and during the crisis such a mobilisation only took place on a limited basis. The Turkish Army was considered a ‘heavy military machine’ that needed more than four days to be deployed effectively. The crisis lasted just three days (26th-29th March). The Turks must have realized that the Greek Army units had not arrived at their stations on the islands by 28th March, the ‘war day’, but on Monday 30th March – it took 48 hours for them to complete their deployment. The crisis was more a rhetorical gesture for both Greek and Turkish sides than a potential military confrontation. The Turks did not intend to coerce Greece through military means; they simply wished to raise the issue of direct negotiations. Perhaps the crisis plan of Ankara was first to hope for a Greek attack against the Sismik that would have resulted in international embarrassment and condemnation for Athens, then the Turkish military would have prepared its response at a time and place of their choosing. The fact that the Turkish Generals had not planned an advance preparation of their forces, did not confirm Admiral Lemperes’ argument on ‘deterrence by sea One senior diplomat commented that some circles in the Ankara Administration had a ‘penchant for naïve provocations’ and perhaps the Turks were anticipating a Greek attack against the which would have justified a

Another Major-General, who during the crisis was head of the Greek Dodecanese Infantry Division (approximately 20,000 troops) in Rhodes, confirmed the Turks’ military passivity and their low operational threat to the Greek islands. He claimed that the 1987 mobilisation of Greek units was the ‘biggest troop transfer’ since A diplomat responsible for Greek-Turkish affairs judged that the deployment of the Greek fleet had been a ‘clear’ message from Athens that Greece would not hesitate to resort to ‘war measures’ over the continental shelf

A Greek rear-admiral pointed out that the Greek naval deployment had convinced the Turks that they would suffer severe casualties if they ventured within the ‘walls of the Aegean’. He admitted that the Greeks were implementing ‘tactics of offence’ as part of a ‘strategy of defence’. They did not intend to attack Turkish coastal bases; they sought to signal the Turkish commanders that they were ready to strike back in the event of a Turkish provocation in Greek territorial waters. This officer assumed that the Turks would have welcomed a Greek first strike at the with Ankara then planning her reaction. He agreed that the Turks’ political intention was to coerce Athens into entering negotiations over the Aegean disputes without the use of military

The leadership of Andreas Papandreou

According to Admiral Lemperes, Air Marshal Koures and UnderSecretary Kapses, the Greek Prime Minister retained ‘absolute power’ and influence over his subordinates during the crisis. Papandreou attempted to use the crisis, the Greek deployment and his anti-American rhetoric to boost his patriotic image at home. After the crisis was over, he sent secret letters to Prime Minister Ozal seeking a Greek-Turkish rapprochement. These messages were leaked in early April to the Greek press. After the crisis, part of the Greek press supported Papandreou’s handling of matters, while the conservative Nea Dimokratia party and the press affiliated to it, accused the socialist administration of ‘bluffing’. In researching Papandreou’s crisis-management I confronted considerable difficulties. His private papers remain sealed and there is absolutely no academic study of his leadership style during the crisis. Greek academic research has focused on the 11 years of Papandreou’s premiership and on his political behaviour, but has left aside ‘the three-day crisis’ in 1987. Moreover, the 1980s media were at once partisan and vague in their treatment of politics and I have attempted to avoid biased journalistic accounts. I have therefore concentrated on a close reading of relevant passages in the memoirs of key PASOK secretaries and on the interviews I conducted with officials with direct experience of the 1987 crisis.

Admiral Lemperes believed that Papandreou’s personality was the key to Greek crisis-management in 1987. The Prime Minister played a decisive role and ‘overshadowed’ the crisis-management bureaucracy, which had ‘operational gaps’. Papandreou succeeded in negotiating with the US, in ‘inspiring’ the Armed Forces and in ‘showing respect’ to institutional bodies like the KYSEA, the cabinet and the PASOK parliamentary grouping.

We assume that Papandreou followed the mono-centrist approach in his relationship with Greek Lemperes claimed that ‘Papandreou provided the Armed Forces with clear political aims and rules of engagement’. The Greek Admiral put the blame for starting the crisis on ‘centres outside Greece which aimed to control energy resources. These centres co-operated with Ankara in order to force Greece to the negotiating

One of the controversial incidents of the 1987 crisis was the allegation of the ‘US base close-down’ in Athens at the request of Papandreou. During the 27th March meeting between UnderSecretary Kapses with Ambassador Keeley, the American diplomat was confronted with accusations of having given ‘the green light’ to provocative Ankara behaviour over Greek sovereign rights. Kapses informed Keeley of the Greek decision to ‘close down the base’ at Nea Makri, near Athens. The official Greek justification was that ‘the base would be closed to avoid any accidental intercepting of the communications of the Greek Air Force’. In his book, Kapses argues that the Greek decision on the US base would be ‘a bad precedent’ in other countries where the Americans maintained bases. Kapses admitted that the close-down lasted no longer than 24 hours – from 1800 on 27th March until 18:00 the following day – after which Papandreou decided and the Greek Administration announced that there was ‘no reason’ to continue implementing Article 7 of the 1983 Defence Co-operation Agreement (which Greece interpreted as giving her the right to close the US

Despite the nationalistic anti-American rhetoric of the late 1980s, it was revealed that the Greek authorities had not in fact closed down the base at all, nor cause any real difficulty in the operation of US military-communications installations. The purported close-down was a ploy in domestic politics to establish the image of Papandreou negotiating on an equal footing with the Americans during the crisis. In 1990, UnderSecretary Kapses wrote that Washington had been ‘panicked’ by the decision to close down the Nea Makri base on 27th March and Secretary Charalampopoulos, Air Marshal Koures and Admiral Lemperes all followed the same storyline in their books. In the eyes of Greek public opinion, Papandreou’s Greece had closed down a US base to show her determination to defend her sovereign rights during the 1987 In July 1992, Kapses admitted that the Nea Makri base had indeed continued operating when it was supposed to be closed. He added that a PASOK unionist working on the base asked Papandreou for authorisation to switch off the power supply, but was According to Chief of the General Staff Air Marshal Koures, Papandreou ‘was determined to involve the Americans in the crisis’. However Papandreou did not wish to be seen to be asking for Washington’s mediation, so he reached the decision to ‘close down’ the base under the terms of the 1983 Defence Co-operation Agreement, in order to compel Washington to become an ‘interested party’ in the crisis. Papandreou also aimed to cause an international reaction in the UN, NATO and the EEC member-states and to bring in external actors, like communist Bulgaria. He sought to demonstrate the internationalisation of the Greek-Turkish crisis to the Greek

Kapses argued that Papandreou was ‘really afraid’ of the American ‘reaction’ after the base controversy, telling Papandreou in person that ‘they [the Americans] would try to topple It is the author’s understanding that, in the same interview with Costas Mardas, Kapses contradicted himself. On the one hand, he said that Athens had caused no harm to the US base and therefore the Americans had no hypothetical reason to take action against the PASOK administration. On the other hand, he relied on conspiracy-sensitive assessments of American hostility to Papandreou. A retired American diplomat told the author that during the crisis, the issue of the base was ‘not all that important’ and that he and his embassy staff had attempted to control the Greek-Turkish crisis and to smooth over Greek-Turkish

Ostensibly, Papandreou aimed to create ‘a Greek victory’ for his domestic audience. Since 1974, Greek public opinion had been frustrated with the continuation of Turkish occupation in Cyprus and the perceived Turkish challenge in the Aegean status quo. Papandreou may have assumed that if he could present such a victory he could proceed to a Greek-Turkish rapprochement, as he eventually did in 1988 at the Davos International Conference, where he met and consulted with Prime Minister Ozal. Eventually Davos led to the Memorandum of Understanding between Foreign Secretaries Papoulias and Yilmaz for confidence-building measures in the Aegean. A Major-General directly involved in the MoD consultations during the crisis, claimed that Papandreou was ‘one of the first’ who did not seek a military confrontation with Turkey, despite his rhetoric. During the crisis, Papandreou ‘regulated’ the Greek military deployment to the degree that would not call forth a Turkish reaction. If the Turks had mobilised their forces, then Papandreou would have ‘scaled down the

Generally, Papandreou’s way of acting and speaking was populist, nationalistic and (according to the former NIS Director Costas Tsimas) The Greek Prime Minister used ‘double discourse’ to secure domestic support for PASOK. Papandreou maintained absolute power and influence over PASOK and his administration. He was more than simply primus inter pares – he was the ‘mind’ of both the administration and his party. The lack of documented information on his consulting and on his attitude to and style of private decision-making during the 1987 crisis, causes serious problems in understanding his mentality and his thinking at such times. An assessment that claims that he was ‘bluffing’, only ‘pretending’ to counter the Turkish threat, was widespread among contemporary military The image of one ‘determined leader ready for war’ was promoted almost solely by his Secretaries Kapses and Charalampopoulos, Admiral Lemperes and Air Marshal Koures and their accounts are biased in key areas. The author feels that the lack of primary sources on Papandreou’s private councils and talks with other senior Greek leaders decisively prevents a full assessment of his leadership during the crisis.

A US diplomat has put the blame for the crisis on UnderSecretary Kapses’s nationalist attitudes. The American diplomat revealed to the author something undisclosed in the existing Greek literature. Communication between Kapses and the Turkish Ambassador to Greece, Nazmi Akiman, was ‘bad’ and a ‘misunderstanding’ had arisen between them. At a meeting on 28th February 1987, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kapses seems to have said that the Bern Protocol was not active and that the Greeks ‘could drill anywhere and when they damn well pleased’. Akiman interpreted this statement as a ‘blatant threat to take unilateral action on the Aegean continental shelf’. Turkey believed that Athens had ordered Denison to drill, when in reality exactly the opposite had occurred. The DoI was attempting to find ways to avert any such drilling in order to avoid a Turkish reaction. The American diplomat was informed of the Turkish defensive stance by the US ambassador in Ankara, who in turn had been briefed by the Turkish Afterwards, Ankara sent out the Pirireis and the Sismik research parties and the Athens administration put its armed forces on alert.

At 0300 on 27th March, the US State Department contacted the American Ambassador Robert Keeley in Athens, warning him that ‘war was imminent and therefore he should do Keeley then communicated with Kapses, who met with Akiman at about 0600 that morning and clarified the ‘misunderstanding’. Athens would not take unilateral action in the Aegean international waters, nor would Denison conduct explorations there. In the evening, Prime Minister Ozal broadcast his crisis de-escalation message from London: ‘If they [the Greeks] do not leave their territorial waters, then we will not leave ours’. However Washington ‘did not gain any credit for their intervention’ (a fact that has remained understated in the literature). For American diplomats reviewing Greek-Turkish relations, the hostile rhetoric of the Greek press before, during and after the 1987 crisis ‘seemed to get worse every A very senior Greek diplomat has confirmed Keeley’s account of the Akiman-Kapses ‘misunderstanding’, and he also revealed that Akiman had ‘a tendency’ to select words and phrases of Kapses that sounded aggressive. By quoting Kapses outside the context of Greek policy towards Turkey, Ambassador Akiman painted a picture of a hostile and unilateralist Greece; he thus transmitted to Ankara an outline of the ‘climate’ in Greece which differed from the

Another former NIS director and diplomat serving in Turkey claimed that in the 1980s, before the 1987 crisis, his counterparts in the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs had been willing to brief him on the occasional private meetings between Kapses and Akiman at the MFA in Athens. He suspected that the Turkish intention in keeping him informed had been based on Turkish fears that Kapses might not have been transmitting accurately the Turkish position and views on the Aegean issue to his diplomats in Perhaps this insight leads us to assume that Kapses-Akiman relations had had some serious problems prior to the crisis, problems forgotten in the literature on Greek-Turkish affairs.

In early April 1987, the conservative Greek press accused Papandreou of pretending to counter the Turkish research initiave while ‘accepting the validity of the Bern Protocol’. Greece was refraining from exploration in the Greek-claimed continental shelf. In Greece, the pro-PASOK media followed the administration line on having ‘deterred’ Turkey and on the ‘retreat of Ozal’, while the Turkish media were declaring ‘a Turkish In May, Law 1701/1987 was introduced in Greece, the Northern Greek Oil Company thereby acquiring Denison’s shares and with them its exploration rights, in accordance with Article 106 of the Greek Constitution. As usual, the Greek newspapers predicted ‘a hot summer’ and more Turkish provocations in the coming

According to the evidence so far from sources expert in military intelligence, the 1987 crisis was mainly a confrontation of rhetoric. The Hellenic Navy mobilised almost its entire fleet, but the Turks did not seem alarmed by a possible Greek offensive operation. Turkey used aggressive rhetoric but did not mobilise its forces. It is the author’s understanding that since there was no real Greek-Turkish military brinkmanship, the Greek response could not have amounted to deterrence – in order to ‘deter’ an operational threat, there has to be a specific time and place for such a threat and not merely rhetoric. The Turks could not have been ‘deterred’ from an action they had no intention of taking in the first place. Admiral Lemperes admitted that, eventually, Greece accepted de facto the validity of the Bern agreement and Athens stopped commissioning explorations outside Greek territorial waters. Nor did Greece deter Turkey’s political intentions during the 1987 Despite the fact that the Turkish military threat to Greece was low, Greek military intelligence made no changes whatever in its strategic assessments of Turkish intentions and capabilities with respect to Greece. In Greek eyes, Turkey was following an expansionist, long-term strategy against Greece; it was ruled by an undemocratic nationalist regime, its arms-procurement programme was disproportionately large and most significantly the Turkish military continued to occupy part of the Cyprus Republic.

A former Secretary of State and a senior diplomat have argued that Greece deterred Turkey, by signalling her resolve to go to war if Ankara challenged her sovereign rights over the continental shelf. However they agreed that this interpretation of the crisis response might not be ‘the only one’. Turkey intended to coerce Greece politically into negotiating with Ankara (rather than seeking international arbitration) over the Aegean disputes, but had no intention of resorting to military force. The former Secretary of State stressed that Turkey’s strategic intentions were not the oil deposits in the Northern Aegean, but the division of the Aegean for Greek-Turkish ‘co-exploitation’ of these deposits – which in any case were not as rich as presented by the populist

Although I cannot base my analysis of the crisis on official documents, the interviews and memoirs available to me provide enough evidence to substantiate the conclusion that Prime Minister Papandreou exaggerated the Greek military response and rhetoric to create the perception of a Greek ‘victory’, for international and particularly for domestic consumption. His crisis management was ‘politicised’ (but not within the context of politicisation referred to in the Introduction) while his intelligence sources were reassuring him that there was little danger of a Turkish military response. Papandreou trusted the NIS director’s threat assessments and seems not to have exerted pressure for them to be changed. Good intelligence on Turkish military passivity gave the Greeks the confidence to play what would otherwise have been a dangerous game.

Finally, the conspiracy accusations levelled at the US and Turkey and the claims of ‘foreign centres’ having staged the crisis to topple Papandreou seem to have been propaganda for domestic consumption. We could argue that if Papandreou did have intelligence – from a spy or via an intercept – that revealed ‘US-NATO-Turkey secret crisis plans’, he may not have wanted to ‘burn’ his top-secret sources by revealing his intelligence during the crisis. The occasional statements of Denison executives against the Greek decisions were indeed provocative, but are far from proving the existence of a ‘secret plan’ against

https://zoboko.com/text/v8vegm0j/greek-military-intelligence-and-the-crescent-estimating-the-turkish-threat-crises-leadership-and-strategic-analyses-1974-1996/8

Jaroslav · July 2, 2025

RENEGOTIATION OF THE GREEK BASE AGREEMENT

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP89M00699R002201810006-0.pdf

Jaroslav · July 2, 2025

On 5/27/2024 at 2:45 PM, Perun said:

Does anyone have Nike Hercules firing envelope diagram

https://www.paluba.info/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=33632.0;attach=1217770;image

index.php?action=dlattach;topic=33632.0;

Edited July 2, 2025 by Jaroslav

Jaroslav · July 2, 2025

Positions of Turkish MiM-14 Nike Hercules

https://www.paluba.info/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=33632.0;attach=848910;image

index.php?action=dlattach;topic=33632.0;

Edited July 2, 2025 by Jaroslav

Jaroslav · August 6, 2025

aegean-sea-3d-render-topographic-map-col

Jaroslav · August 6, 2025

I didnt paste the whole article, just part which is interesting for this topic. Most interested parts are bolded. Enjoy

Turkey’s contingency war plans against Greece — particularly targeting Western Thrace and the Aegean islands — have suffered a serious setback due to the expanded military presence of the United States and France in support of Greek defense, prompting a wave of sharp criticism from Turkey’s increasingly frustrated leadership, including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in recent years.

Turkey’s military strategy for a potential incursion into Greek territory, particularly Western Thrace, was designed to exploit a narrow window of opportunity, which Turkish generals anticipated would close quickly with swift intervention from the US and Europe following any Turkish offensive.

These secret plans were first revealed during the 2010 “Sledgehammer” (Balyoz) trial in Istanbul, which exposed the mindset of hardline Turkish generals considering such contingencies. At the time the revelations drew little attention, likely because they were buried in the annexes of an extensive case file, whose primary focus was a domestic power struggle between influential military leaders and the civilian government.

However, the overwhelming evidence in the case file — including authenticated documents, voice recordings and General Staff reports — confirmed that detailed war plans were indeed discussed during a military seminar held March 5–7, 2003, under the leadership of then-commander of the 1st Army Corps, General Çetin Doğan. Approximately 30 senior officers took part in the seminar.

Headquartered in Istanbul, the 1st Army Corps is tasked with defending Turkey’s Thrace region, which borders Greece, as well as securing the Bosporus Straits, Istanbul and the broader Marmara region. The seminar was also attended by representatives from the Turkish General Staff and other military units.

The central focus of the war plan was a military operation in the Aegean, with supplementary actions in the Thrace region of Greece to support the primary theatre. The planners emphasized that any military action in Thrace should focus not on territorial conquest, but on inflicting maximum damage to enemy forces. The objective was to punish rather than occupy.

“The measures to be taken in Thrace must support the operation in the Aegean,” stated the seminar’s final report. “The objective in this region should be less about territorial gains and more focused on destroying as many enemy forces as possible.”

A summary of the seminar’s classified report was presented to participants in a PowerPoint presentation, a copy of which was later obtained by Nordic Monitor.

The seminar also revealed the prevailing mindset among Turkish military planners at the time, particularly those with anti-American and anti-NATO views. While Erdogan initially clashed with these officers, he eventually formed a decade-long political alliance with them and their civilian supporters, collectively known as Ulusalcılar (neo-nationalists), in 2014.

According to the seminar report, Turkish strategists anticipated that NATO and the EU would quickly intervene if Turkey launched a military offensive in Greece’s Thrace region. Consequently, they concluded that Turkey would have only three to four days to achieve its objectives — enough to inflict significant damage on Greek forces, but not enough for long-term occupation. The ultimate goal, they argued, was to seize control of the Aegean islands.

While these plans may have evolved, been revised and updated over time, their fundamental structure and overall objective are believed to have remained intact. However, the strategic landscape has changed dramatically, much to the dismay of Turkey’s war planners, making a military offensive against Greece more challenging than before.

https://nordicmonitor.com/2025/04/turkeys-invasion-plans-for-greece-thwarted-by-us-france-provoking-angry-outbursts-from-erdogan/

Jaroslav · August 6, 2025

Another interesting article:

Turkey has a plan for the invasion of Greece codenamed after an 11th century Turkish military commander who ruled an independent state during the Byzantine era, secret documents have revealed.

According to a Power Point presentation prepared by the General Staff for an internal planning review, Turkey drew up a plan for a secret military operation named “TSK Çakabey Harekât Planlama Direktifi” (TSK [Turkish Armed Forces] Çakabey Operation Planning Directive). The document has a date of June 13, 2014, suggesting that it was most likely updated and finalized on that date after a review of an earlier version and is presumably still active.

...

It was not surprising to see that Turkish planners named the military action against Greece for Çaka Bey (Tzachas in Greek), a revered name in Turkey, especially among navy people, as the man who led the first-ever Turkish expedition in the Aegean. Çaka Bey’s forces took over islands in the Aegean such as Lesbos, Samos, Chios and Rhodes as well as some territory in the Aegean coastlands in 1088-91 from the Byzantine Empire. Some in Turkey even call him the founding father of the Turkish navy.

The website of the Turkish Naval Command (Türk Deniz Kuvvetleri) lists 1081 as the date when the first modern Turkish navy was established under Çaka Bey’s rule. It states that Çaka Bey established a shipyard in Izmir, built a 50-vessel armada to venture out into Aegean waters and defeated the Byzantine navy. The Naval Museum Command has a statue portraying Çaka Bey as the first Turkish admiral in its museum in Istanbul.

...

The document does not have any details on the specifics of the plan other than the name and the updated date of the plan.

...

The documents confirms what Nordic Monitor previously reported with respect to Armenia. An operation codenamed “Altay,” which was the name assigned to the military action against Armenia in another document, was also incorporated into the case file by prosecutor Coşkun. The same operation name was listed in the Power Point presentation as well.

...

https://nordicmonitor.com/2020/06/turkey-planned-to-invade-greece-secret-document-reveals/

Jaroslav · August 6, 2025

This article is similiar to those mentioned above but this time with diferent code name:

...

One of Turkey’s secret war plans against Greece, code-named “Barbaros” after the Ottoman admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa, envisions a central role for the Aegean Army. This plan outlines the army’s command and control over special forces and air and naval assets to launch attacks on Greek islands in the Aegean Sea and on mainland Greek territory.

...

https://nordicmonitor.com/2024/08/the-new-command-in-turkeys-aegean-army-signals-potential-trouble-for-greece-nato-allies/

Jaroslav · August 6, 2025

Greece–Turkey relations

Control of the eastern Mediterranean and Aegean seas remains as the main issue. Following the aftermath of World War II, the UNCLOS treaty, the decolonisation of Cyprus, and the addition of the Dodecanese to Greece's territory have strained the relationship. Several issues frequently affect their current relations, including territorial disputes over the sea and air, minority rights, and Turkey's relationship with the European Union (EU) and its member states—especially Cyprus. Control of energy pipelines is also an increasing focus in their relations.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greece–Turkey_relations

Jaroslav · August 6, 2025

artoff2048-7783e-504b7.jpg?1583782286

Jaroslav · August 14, 2025

Turkish war plan:

Operation "Çakabey"

The central focus of the war plan was a military operation in the Aegean, with supplementary actions in the Thrace region of Greece to support the primary theatre. The planners emphasized that any military action in Thrace should focus not on territorial conquest, but on inflicting maximum damage to enemy forces. The objective was to punish rather than occupy.

“The measures to be taken in Thrace must support the operation in the Aegean,” stated the seminar’s final report. “The objective in this region should be less about territorial gains and more focused on destroying as many enemy forces as possible.”

https://nordicmonitor.com/2025/04/turkeys-invasion-plans-for-greece-thwarted-by-us-france-provoking-angry-outbursts-from-erdogan/

My oppinion is that Turkish first major goal would be to seize Aegean islands up to doted green line (map just above) and up to Struma river in Thracia.

Defense Minister Charalampopoulos claimed that Turkey put the First Army in Thrace (on the Greek-Turkish border) on alert and that her Fourth Army (the Aegean Army) was put on stand-by for immediate departure. Meanwhile, the Turkish Fleet “had been summoned in
the Sea of Marmara” and the Turkish Air Force had been re-stationing aircraft in West Anatolia, “ready to react in the event of a conflict.”

Admiral Lemperes wrote that the Turkish air and naval presence was “very limited.” Only after the crisis did the Turks increase their presence in the international waters of the central and North Aegean. The Turkish Navy General Staff sent patrols to the north Aegean in the axis of Turkish Imvros Island, the Greek islands of Thasos and Limnos as well as Athos on the Greek mainland and back to Imvros. On the high seas,
however, there was no Turkish group for offensive operations. Greek tactical imagery intelligence operations did not locate Turkish missile boats on the Anatolia coast, but Lemperes believed that the Turkish boats could have been hiding there. In the Gulfs of Smyrna (Izmir) and Fokaia, the Turks gathered a significant number of landing craft
prompting the Greek admiral to say:
The behavior of the Turks [during the crisis] was not provocative. They appeared rather cautious or even scared [έδειχναν μάλλον προσεκτικοί ως φοβισμένοι]; there was no harassment of Greek warships or merchant ships.
We were concerned about the Turkish imagery and signals intelligence operations or by the presence of Turkish merchant ships in the sea sectors the Greek ships were gathered and [we were concerned] about the posi-
tions of Turkish submarines and the use of Sea Scua missiles by Turkish
Navy helicopters . . . in tactical terms we had a clear picture. Our strategic
[intelligence] picture had gaps. The Chief of the Fleet could not have an overall picture of the Turkish armed forces, of their intentions, of the political game. . . . Despite the low Turkish presence, nothing could have guaranteed for us that the Turks would not have decided to send off their Fleet in due time. The Turkish armed forces had been put on stand-by.

The Turkish Navy units that participated in an exercise in the Black Sea were heading toward the Sea of Marmara by Friday, 27 March and all Turkish submarines had been deployed in the Aegean. Moreover, the units of the Turkish Fourth Army on the Anatolia coast “took dispersion positions.”

Source: Greek Military Intelligence and the Turkish "Threat" during the 1987 Aegean Crisis, Panagiotis Dimitrakis

Edited August 14, 2025 by Jaroslav

Jaroslav · August 14, 2025

Greek war plans:

Tuesday 24 March,
Greek 3rd Special Forces Division (paratroopers, marines, and rangers) and army units.

The Greek units had to be transported by air and sea to the five large Greek islands in the East Aegean (Rhodes, Lesbos, Samos, Chios, and Kos) and to take defensive positions there. Then mobilization had to be completed by early morning on Saturday 28 March since the Greek generals assumed that by 11:00 Saturday the Sismik would have sailed into the area of the Aegean continental shelf, thus necessitating a Greek response that could escalate into hostilities between the two nations. All unit orders were transmitted by 22:00 on 25 March (Greek National Independence Day).

...top Greek officers had been in crisis mode for at least ten days, he (chief operations officer) had not received any military indications regarding the Turkish armed forces’ intentions. There appears to have been a gap in Greek intelligence regarding Turkish capabilities and intentions perhaps because the Turks had done nothing for the last ten days, despite the official Turkish rhetoric with its threats against Greece.
In Athens, MoD preparations had been frantic. Dimou realized that the orders “for defending Greek sovereign rights on the continental shelf” had been “unclear.” Truly, in comparison to orders for defending the islands from possible invasion, the directive about defending the sovereign sea rights looks very vague and insufficient to address the fulfillment of tactical crisis requirements.

In the evening of 26 March, the Chief of the Navy General Staff, Admiral Leonidas Vasilikopoulos, summoned the Supreme Navy Council and briefed his admirals on the intentions of the Papandreou administration toward the Turkish exploration plans. The Council called for massive mobilization of ships, naval stations, and personnel. That evening, an
alert was rung at the main Navy base in Salamina, near Athens. Chief Commander Chrisikopoulos was asked by Admiral Vasilikopoulos to prepare his forces for deployment in the Aegean. Vasilikopoulos asked Chrisikopoulos how much time he needed to sail and the chief commander replied, “just two hours,” surprising the admiral who did not know that the Fast Boat Command had already been on stand-by.
By 02:48 on 27 March, the Navy General Staff declared a situation of “military counter-surprise” for all Hellenic Navy services with the exception of units based in the Ionian Sea. This meant that the Navy had to be prepared for the possible danger of Turkish military action within the next 36 hours. The operational plans assigned primary importance to the imminent dispatch of small missile and torpedo boats.
Afterward, submarines, frigates, destroyers, and other auxiliary ships (in that order) departed.

The missiles boats instructed to find hiding places around the Greek island coasts and islets on order to be able to counter any Turkish naval activity. Chief of the Fleet Admiral Lemperes kept in
mind that the Greek East Aegean islands were about 240 nautical miles
from Salamina, so there had to be an imminent dispatch of the naval task force, even if this went against doctrine tactics of preparations and ship density formations. Navy commanders were ordered to defend Greek “sovereign rights” on the continental shelf while Hellenic Navy overt operations were aimed at detecting any Turkish submarines in the Aegean. According to the Rules of Engagement, the Greek ships were free to turn weapons systems against Turkish ships according to their demeanor.

At 04:04, three destroyers were dispatched to the islands of Skyros (central Aegean) at 8:30.

At 8:00, six S-209 submarines departed
from Salamina heading for the central and north Aegean. Two Greek submarines, participating in the NATO “Dog-Fish” exercise in the central Mediterranean, were recalled, and, on the evening of 28 March, they entered the Aegean.

Lemperes and Vasilikopoulos assigned importance to monitoring possible Turkish reactions and concentrating their firepower in case of escalation. More than 65 warships and auxiliary vessels were
mobilized on the 27th and 28th of March.
By 10:00 on 27 March, Chief Commander Chrisikopoulos, with his torpedo and missile boats, was off the coasts of Lemnos Island. The first wave of the Hellenic Navy ships was assigned to τα μετερίζια του Αιγαίου (the walls of the Aegean), the areas around the island of Lemnos and west of Mylitini which were considered key in the event of a Greek-Turkish naval war. In this way the Hellenic Navy could intercept the Turkish
fleet coming out from its bases in the Sea of Marmara and Izmir (in 1987 Turkey had not yet built the Aksaz naval base in southwest Anatolia and the northeast Aegean was considered the center of gravity of Aegean naval warfare). Evidently, the Turkish military had been surprised by this rapid Greek fleet deployment and “must have assumed that any Turkish Navy initiative would be doomed.”
The Hellenic Navy task force had three groups of ships. The first group was assigned the close surveillance of Sismik 1 when she appeared in North Aegean waters. The second group operated in the central Aegean providing escort to 11 navy auxiliary ships that transported war material and troops to key Aegean islands. The third group of ships patrolled around the islands of the Cyclades and Sporades (southwest Aegean), ready to undertake any support or offensive operations.

Meanwhile during the day, Hellenic Navy helicopters AB-212 and Allouet III and planes Albatros monitored the Greek task force. In parallel, a special EYP signal intelligence aircraft operated over the East Aegean. By 11:45 on March 27, the ships were ordered to limit electronic broadcasts for security reasons. Lemperes further ordered his commanders to be ready to implement electronic warfare doctrine, thus sending yet another signal of Greek determination to Turkish military intelligence.

Source: Greek Military Intelligence and the Turkish "Threat" during the 1987 Aegean Crisis, Panagiotis Dimitrakis

Edited August 14, 2025 by Jaroslav

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