The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is participating for the first time, along with new arrival France, in the joint Greek-Egyptian-Cypriot Medusa-10 training exercises being held Nov. 30 to Dec. 6 off the coast of Alexandria.

The Emirati presence in the military exercises comes less than two weeks after signing a strategic partnership agreement with Greece Nov. 18, which was described to Al-Monitor as “a major achievement from Athens’ point of view” by Kostas Ifantis, professor of international relations at Panteion University in Athens. 

“It is the first time in the post-WWII era that Athens concludes a bilateral agreement of this magnitude. What brought the two together in such an urgent way is Turkey and the overreaching revisionism of Ankara. It is an arrangement aiming at containing Turkey and making the deterrent strategies of both Greece and the UAE more credible,” Ifantis added.

The UAE, which has been locked in a rivalry with Turkey since 2013 over what it views as Ankara’s destabilizing support for the Muslim Brotherhood, has sided with Greece in recent years as the Hellenic country confronts Turkey over a series of maritime disputes in the Eastern Mediterranean.