Turkey's Thalassolykos exercise will not take place as we mentioned in Pentapostagma as early as May 26. Turkish media specializing in defense issues attribute the cancellation of the exercise to a downgrading of the Greek exercise Storm to smaller-scale local operational exercises.
However, as revealed by the Pentateuch based on relevant instructions to seafarers issued on the day of the Fall of the City by the hydrographic station of Antalya and information from military sources, Turkey will from today withdraw, if not all, certainly a significant part of its southern naval power that is on board at Aksaz Naval Station.
The dates of the commitment of the areas correspond to those of the Thalassolykos exercise, but as military sources explained to us, this has to do with the fact that this smaller-scale "operational exercise" was also part of Deniz Kurdu.
The areas that are mostly east and west of Kastellorizos will be restricted from today until June 12 with the only pause during the day of the Holy Spirit as the same sources stressed that as everything shows, the Turks will respect the relevant moratorium that exists between Athens and Ankara for the non-performance of military exercises during national and religious holidays and during the summer tourist season.
Let us recall here that the Turkish Ministry of Defense had leaked that for the Thalassolykos exercise it would mobilize 107 surface ships, 9 submarines, 56 airborne units, amphibious infantry units and groups of marines.
The next few days will show whether the cancellation of Thalassolykos on the part of Turkey was done for reasons of economy, as several sources in Athens state, or as a match for the downgrading of "Storm" on the part of Greece to smaller-scale exercises.
Of course, we should not forget that there was a discussion about observing the summer moratorium between Panagiotopoulos and Akar during the former's visit to the earthquake affected areas.
The case that Washington mediated communication with Ankara, with the request to cancel the Thalassolykos exercise so that there would be peace in the Aegean, as long as Greece lives in pre-election rhythms with a caretaker government, does not exist as according to sources in the American capital with whom the Pentateuch communicated, the US government does not want to do anything that would be seen by Ankara as meddling in its internal affairs.
In any case, what is certain is that the Greek navy will monitor the movements of the Turks and in this case, as although the areas they have occupied are in areas of their own jurisdiction near their coasts, they are nevertheless concentrated at a relatively short distance around Kastelorizo and if the entire southern Turkish naval force comes out, we will again be talking about a force to be reckoned with outside the Turkish sea level.
