ATHENS – There’s anxiety in Greece that there’s calm before a storm in Turkey, where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan faces a stern challenge in may 14 elections to his 20-year-rule and that no matter who wins there will be a return to ratcheting up provocations.

After a deadly earthquake in Turkey and train tragedy in Greece, he dialed down the tensions and stopped his threats to invade but the mood in Greece is that if he wins he’ll be back to his old tricks.

Hopes in Greece that he’ll be replaced by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who’s leading a coalition taking him on were dashed when the opposition leader said he would be tougher in demands that Greece take troops off Aegean islands near Turkey’s coast.

In a feature on the criticality of Turkey’s contest, POLITICO correspondent Nektaria Stamouli wrote of the scenario on the minds of Greek leaders – with an election coming May 21 and a second round likely July 2.

“After Turks themselves, Greeks will be the closest observers (of Turkey’s elections) and they have few illusions that everything is going to be rosy with the old foe (but fellow NATO member) across the Aegean Sea after the vote, no matter who wins,” she wrote.

https://www.politico.eu/article/turkey-election-president-erdogan-gives-greece-a-migraine/

That means the bad old days will be back, with Erdogan emboldened if his appeal to his nationalist base pays off and Kılıçdaroğlu pulling out a similar playbook – taunting Greece – if he does too.

A catalyst is whether Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis – wh0se strategy is deflecting provocations – comes back to power or is replaced by the man he unseated, SYRIZA Leftist leader Alexis Tsipras who said he’d go tough on Turkey.

“When it comes to the big regional tussles  – marine boundaries, energy resources in the East Mediterranean and Cyprus – Turkey’s key strategic priorities are likely to remain inflexible,” the news site noted.

Mitsotakis is cautious.“I welcome the relative improvement in the climate following the devastating earthquakes in Turkey, but I have no illusions. Turkish policy is not going to change overnight,” he told OPEN TV.

He’s unhappy about Turkey’s proclaimed Blue Homeland that claims swathes of Greek territory and the seas, a policy Mitsotakis said “has been a building block of Turkish expansionism in recent years, posing a potential threat to our homeland.”

Constantinos Filis, Director of the Institute of Global Affairs and a Professor of International Relations at the American College of Greece, said there’s a difference in the styles of the rivals but not their policies in Turkey.

“I don’t know how easy it will be for Kılıçdaroğlu to change the rhetoric, when Erdoğan has raised the bar so high,” Filis added.

Soner Çağaptay, Director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute, said the difference between the two rivals in the Turkish election was far more binary for Greek security.

“Either Erdoğan will lose, and 20 years of Erdoğan will come to an end, or he will win and Turkey will become a complete autocracy … for Greece, it’s a choice between having a democracy or autocracy next door for the foreseeable future,” he said of the dilemma.