THE SECURITY DILEMMA BETWEEN TURKEY-GREECE AND ARMS RACE: KARDAK AND EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN CRISES

Throughout history, there has been a continuing insecurity perception between Turkey and Greece. As a natural consequence of this perception of insecurity, disagreement has been accepted as an 'ordinary' situation while cooperation as an 'unusual' one. During the Cold War, the main reasons for the lack of cooperation were historical rivalry as well as hostility and the perception of insecurity. In this case, the factor that determine the security perception in Turkey-Greece relations has been military power. In this respect, both states have perceived each other's military power as a threat in accordance with their foreign policy interests. The mutual suspicion and mistrust between two states have led to security dilemma which in turn to a vicious circle of arms race. From time to time, the security dilemma has escalated in disputes such as Cyprus, Aegean Islands, territorial waters and airspace. In this respect, two events gave momentum to the security dilemma and brought the two to the brink of hot conflict. Those events are the Kardak crisis in 1996 and the Eastern Mediterranean crisis, which came to light with the natural gas reserves discovered in 2009. In this study, these cases are analyzed comparatively in the context of the security dilemma approach and the arms race..