The Caucasus has for centuries the eastern outpost of the Greek oikumene. Legendary Colchis is located on the now-Georgian coast of the Black Sea and is associated with the Golden Fleece, a symbol of abundance. Prometheus is said to have descended from the mountain to impart forbidden knowledge to humanity. For the modern Greek state, the region is not at the heart of its foreign policy priorities, but a geographical constant that could be ever-more significant.
The South Caucasus has historically been a key factor in Greek foreign policy. The first is the region’s geography, and precisely, its liminal status between the Black Sea and Central Asia, central to the connectivity of Southern and Central Eastern Europe. Secondly, the South Caucasus is yet another platform where Greece’s soft balancing vis-a-vis Türkiye plays out. Ankara’s closest ally is Azerbaijan and this has been one of the lences through which Athens views the region. As many Greek foreign policy experts emphasise, the Black Sea and South Caucasus are naturally poised to become priority regions. Last but not least, since the 2010’s, Azerbaijan became an important supplier of energy resources to Athens, reshaping the nature of Greek engagement in the region.
From a regional perspective, Greece was among the first European countries to recognise the independence of all the three states of South Caucasus. The recognition of Armenian independence happened merely a month after its proclamation, on September 21, 1991; Azerbaijan and Georgia followed soon. Greece proceeded with opening its embassies in the local capitals, in Baku as early as the spring of 1993. Athens could scarcely afford not to engage in a region with significant Greek populations and a high Russian, Turkish, and Iranian diplomacy. Greece, Bulgaria and Romania are the was closest and most motivated to engage EU member states in the vicinity of the South Caucasus. So it would not have been unreasonable from the Hellenic Republic to aspire for a role as a bridge to Europe for this part of the world.
These ambitions have not fully materialised. Decades later, Athens is not a crucial investor or commercial partner for any of the three countries- with the partial exception of Azerbaijan, with trade turnover about $1.4bn that is largely due to oil and gas imports. Respective figures for Georgia and especially Armenia are quite low, as the share of Greece in their trade structure is below 1%. For Georgia and Armenia, migrant remittances for migrants that settled in Greece in the 1990’s, did play an important role, or at least until the 2008-2009 economic crisis. Still, Athens retains strong political engagement with the region, which indicates that its significance goes beyond trade instrumentality.
Elephant in the room: the role of Turkish factor
Greece’s relations with Türkiye have been traditionally fraught with multiple controversies. The two countries fought a bloody war in 1919-1922 that triggered a massive ethnic replacement; the relations turned sour once again with the Cyprus crisis in 1974, when the de facto Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus emerged with Ankara’s military backing. Since then, Türkiye has been viewed in Athens as the gravest external threat, despite shared NATO membership that placed them on same side of the Iron Curtain. Hence, Athens’s policy towards its mighty eastern neighbour has been characterised by ambiguity: containing while engaging, balancing while sharing the same strategic trajectory. On a broader level, this ambiguity translated into Athens’ strategy of building relations with Türkiye’s neighbours and/or regional rivals.
Obviously, these concerns have had a strong impact on the Greek attitude vis-a-vis the South Caucasus, which is a very important region for Türkiye in terms of power projection and economic expansion. Establishing a foothold here would mean Athens would take another step towards balancing Ankara. The violent conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia added a crucial dimension, as Ankara turned out to be the only major country to support Baku. Shared grievances against both the Ottoman Empire legacy and present-day Türkiye would have dictated a tilt towards supporting Armenia; however, this would mean alienating Azerbaijan, the biggest economy and geopolitical actor in the region. This trade-off has defined the Greek stance towards the South Caucasus. While the notion of historic and cultural affinity to Armenia has become quite common in Greek political discourse, and Greece was among the first countries to recognise the Armenian genocide back in 1996, Athens would go a long way to maintain a robust relationship with Baku as well. Starting from Ter Petrosyan, Armenian heads of state paid several visits to Greece, while Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev came to Athens twice – excluding the 2004 visit for the Olympics – in 2009 and then in 2014. In turn, at the same time, Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras visited Baku in 2013 and 2014, while in November 2024, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis visited Baku for the opening ceremony of COP29.
During the first highest-level visit of Armenian President Ter Petrosyan to Greece in 1996, the two countries signed a military cooperation agreement which, until recently, was confined to training cooperation. Since the 1990’s, Yerevan remained a Russian ally, a member of Moscow-centric defence bloc CSTO and, since 2014, a member of the Eurasian Economic Union. This alignment with Russia limited the scope of Armenia’s rapprochement with various Western actors. At the same time, Greece developed a robust cooperation pattern with Azerbaijan, based on energy, and Baku’s broader Westward orientation.
Things started to change in mid-2010s. Ankara’s foreign policy became more multivectoral and preoccupied with the Middle East while relations with the West deteriorated. This trend triggered the re-intensification of Turkish-Greek tensions in the Aegean, culminating in a series of maritime and airspace violations that could easily provoke a larger clash. Against this background, Athens set out to solidify its ties with all Ankara’s rivals, including France, Israel, Cyprus, and Armenia. Greece was particularly enthusiastic about developing strategic projects with Israel, including the construction of an East Med gas pipeline from Israel, which would bypass Türkiye, and attracting investment from Israeli military companies.
While this development does not, in itself, represent an immediate problem for Baku, particularly since it has fundamentally established relations with Tel Aviv, it is a strong irritant for Ankara, which may pose serious obstacles to Azerbaijan’s multi-vectored foreign policy and energy strategy. This is why Azerbaijan, who in 2020-2021 maintained successful mediation efforts between Turkiye and Israel, may be well-positioned for a much more complex task of re-establishing coordination between the countries in the view of the severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza, while using its ties with Tel Aviv and Athens to alleviate Turkish concerns regarding their cooperation. While incredibly difficult, this mission can be immensely helpful for both Athens and Ankara, whose mutual rivalry and mistrust exacerbate any other foreign policy problems they face.
These developments also coincided with the deterioration of the Azerbaijani-Armenian peace process, particularly after 2014, which made Baku more sensitive to the foreign countries’ security cooperation with Yerevan. After the July 2020 escalation that pushed the countdown button to a new war, binary logic of “us versus them” triumphed, causing the biggest crisis between Baku and Athens this far, when President Aliyev, speaking to the newly appointed Greek Ambassador shortly before the 44-day war, claimed that “military partnerships with Armenia” represent an existential threat to Azerbaijan. This harsh reaction was undoubtedly linked to the perception of an emerging anti-Turkish, anti-Azerbaijani alliance in the Eastern Mediterranean, which was bringing together France, Greece, Cyprus, India, and Armenia. Azerbaijan perceived this geopolitical activism as an attempt to isolate Baku and undermine a carefully constructed network of alignments and partnerships.
This was a low point in Greek-Azerbaijani relations, despite the fact that military cooperation between Athens and Yerevan continued after the war. The intensity of contacts between the countries’ military elites has grown: in 2023, the Armenian government announced an agreement on military-technical cooperation would be signed with Greece that calls, among other things, for “mutual transfer of defense technology”, while in November 2024 information emerged in the media that Athens is planning to sell its Russian-made S-300 missile defence systems, Tor-M1, and OSA surface-to-air to Armenia, citing the two counties’ ties and the role of France among the major grounds. Although Baku on several occasions criticised this cooperation and accused countries selling arms to Armenia of “meddling into the affairs of the South Caucasus”, they didn’t cause a total rupture between Baku and Athens, similar to the near collapse of Azerbaijani-French relations. This is related to the longstanding energy partnership between the countries, which highlights Azerbaijan’s foreign policy strategy.
Fossil fuel exports: the bridge between the Aegean and Caspian
Since the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline was inaugurated in 2005, Greece emerged as one of the major buyers of Azerbaijani fossil fuels. In that particular year, the volume of oil export constituted $81 million and has been steadily rising since then. The location of Greece next to Türkiye, the crucial hub for Azerbaijani hydrocarbons, and at the crossroads of the seas connecting it to Western Europe and the Balkans, made it a very convenient client for Baku. These factors played a role why Greece was targeted as one of the key European markets when the mega project of Southern Gas Corridor, a pipeline that would bring Azerbaijani natural gas to Europe for the first time, was launched in 2013. Hence, Athens, alongside Rome, became the first European importer of the Azerbaijani natural gas since the pipeline was launched in 2020. This made Baku a crucial stakeholder in the energy security of Greece and was reflected in the increasing import volume from Azerbaijan: this figure rose from $415 in 2021 to $1.39 bn. in 2022. In 2023, Greece imported about 2 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas from Azerbaijan, which covered 18% of its total consumption. Moreover, after the completion of TAP an interconnector linking the Greek gas distribution hub of Komotini with Bulgaria was delivered in 2022, Greece was integrated into a wider export geography that allows Baku to diversify its export partners.
Baku’s ambitions regarding Greek energy market haven’t been limited to export only. In mid-2010s, Azerbaijani state energy major SOCAR was planning to acquire a controlling stake in DESFA – the Greek national gas transmission company – against the background of severe economic crisis that forced Athens to find new investors. Such a deal would have been a landmark success for SOCAR as a global company, introducing it into a higher league. While the Greek government had been initially favourable, domestic opposition combined with certain European pressure pushed it to shift its position in favour of an EU-based investor.
Despite this setback, Azerbaijani-Greek energy relations continued to thrive and deepen. They represent a very interesting case showcasing both countries’ foreign policy strategies: creating an interdependence with a country which by most other metrics stands on different positions. In fact, this paradoxical logic benefits both sides. For Baku, being a major actor in the energy security of Greece ensures that the latter’s solidarity with Armenia has certain limits and precludes Athens from openly taking sides. At the same time, it also allows Azerbaijan a certain degree of “damage control” when it comes to the EU-level policies. Without energy imports from the Caspian, Greece would have probably been much more active in promoting pro-Armenian policies within the European institutions. Moreover, partnership with Athens helped Baku to establish energy connections with the countries of Balkans which has considerably boosted Azerbaijan’s significance as an energy supplier for Europe.
And what about Greece? Definitely, its calculated interdependence has also given Athens certain leverage, namely in relations with Türkiye. While Ankara over the decades has firmly emerged as Baku’s closest ally, it is more of a relationship of equals rather than a one-sided street, and Azerbaijan enjoys a considerable degree of influence over Turkish foreign policy. Baku became an interested party in the containment of a Greek-Turkish escalation to ensure uninterrupted cooperation, a factor on which Athens can rely upon, while Ankata is also motivated to safeguard its role as an energy hub. Thus, we can speak of a certain “energy triangle” between Baku, Ankara and Athens, akin to several other foreign policy triangles actively built by Azerbaijan with the aim of alleviating tensions for mutual benefit, most famously the one that involves Türkiye and Israel.
Murad Muradov
Murad Muradov is the deputy director of the Topchubashov Centre, a Baku-based think tank. His areas of expertise cover British politics and security, as well as the geopolitics and geoeconomics of the post-Soviet space.
