Obvious shades of 1999’s “earthquake diplomacy” emerged on Sunday with a lightning visit by Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias to devastated Hatay province in southern Turkey, with his Turkish counterpart Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu greeting him at Adana airport and accompanying him to quake-ravaged Antakya.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu went to Washington and had a bilateral meeting with his American counterpart, Anthony Blinken, where, among other things, the purchase and modernization of F-16s was discussed. The Turkish official had a difficult mission and cultivated high expectations, while also putting Greece on the "menu".

The response of Athens, to Ankara, and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who remembered the casus belli, referring to the issue of the possible extension to 12 miles of Greek territorial waters south and west of Crete, is resounding.