Türkiye Issues NAVTEX for French Survey Ship on East Med Cable Route

The Antalya station issued notice 1127/26 on Tuesday, hours after the ship left Heraklion in Crete. The work is tied to the Great Sea Interconnector, the planned Crete-Cyprus electricity cable and an EU Project of Common Interest. The notice covers Nov. 10, 2026, to March 19, 2027, and asks other vessels to keep two nautical miles from the survey ship.

Türkiye Cites Consent on Its Continental Shelf

The NAVTEX says the marine scientific research will be carried out “along the lines coordinated with the competent Turkish authorities and for which the consent of the Turkish authorities has been obtained,” within the Turkish NAVTEX service area and “on the Turkish continental shelf in the Eastern Mediterranean,” the outer limits of which were communicated to the United Nations on March 18, 2020, in letter A/74/757.

It lists two survey lines running from south of the Kasos-Karpathos area toward waters southwest of Cyprus. The notice is due to be cancelled at 00:01 UTC on March 20, 2027.

Athens Declares the Notice Void

Hours later, the Heraklion station issued NAVTEX 1441/26, declaring the Turkish notice “null and void.” Greece said a significant part of the listed lines lies within the Greek exclusive economic zone and continental shelf, that Heraklion has exclusive NAVTEX authority in that service area, and that the surveys are authorized under Greek permits issued after a request by France’s Nexans on behalf of the project. A Greek notice, 1411/26, remains in force until March 6, 2027.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Tuesday that only Greece and Cyprus have granted permission and that a French note verbale to Türkiye was a notification, not a request for a permit. Government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis said no permit was requested from Türkiye, nor would one be, and that the note “does not imply recognition of maritime jurisdiction.” Environment and Energy Minister Stavros Papastavrou said Türkiye issued a NAVTEX and says it gave consent “without this being requested of it.”

The Cable Project and Competing Claims

The Abeille Marengo, a French-flagged survey vessel, is conducting seabed surveys ahead of the cable installation rather than laying the cable in this phase. About 40% of surveys east of Kasos had remained unfinished after Turkish warships interrupted work there in 2024, and Athens and Paris had discussed a limited reroute around a marine park declared by Türkiye.

Ankara’s 2020 submission to the United Nations set out the outer limits of what it considers its Eastern Mediterranean continental shelf. Greece rejects that claim where it overlaps waters Athens regards as its own, a dispute that has also flared over Türkiye’s marine park designations and earlier long-duration NAVTEX notices in the Aegean.