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NATO in unprecedented bid at in-house deconfliction between Turkey, Greece

NATO has made a timely attempt to defuse tensions between fellow members Turkey and Greece, but the initiative comes with many questions.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg speaks as he chairs a NATO defence ministers meeting via teleconference at the Alliance headquarters in Brussels, on June 17, 2020. (Photo by FRANCOIS LENOIR / POOL / AFP) (Photo by FRANCOIS LENOIR/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

In an unusual effort to mediate between fellow members, NATO has stepped in to ease the maritime row between Turkey and Greece, which has been escalating since early June amid signs of growing increasingly militarized in the past several weeks. 

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced Sept. 3 that Ankara and Athens had agreed “to enter into technical talks at NATO to establish deconfliction mechanisms to reduce the risk of incidents and accidents” in the eastern Mediterranean, where a multilateral rivalry over energy resources has exacerbated long-running territorial disputes between the two neighbors. 

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