Tensions are growing between Turkey and Greece

Tavernas along the beachfront are closing for the winter months. Staff stack chairs and fold red and white checkered tablecloths. It’s the end of the tourist season on the Greek island of Astypalaia. ‘This place is so peaceful right now,’ says Christina Koutsolioutsou, a local artist, ‘but we can’t help but think about what would happen if the worst comes to the worst.’

The Greek military is on high alert. They’re worried that Turkey, just 50 miles across the Aegean Sea, could launch an invasion. There have been months of rising tensions. Astypalaia and dozens of nearby islands are at the center of the dispute. 

War between the two nations feels close. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last month accused Greece of ‘occupying’ the Aegean islands. They were in fact given to Greece by Italy as part of the Paris Peace Treaties after world war two. Erdogan also insists that Athens is stationing troops on the islands, breaking treaties signed almost a century ago that make them a demilitarised zone.