INS Trishul berthed at Souda Bay on Crete on 31 October 2026, five days after Greece and five partners told the United Nations that a Turkey-Libya maritime memorandum threatens regional stability. The Ministry of Defence release on her visit names no dispute and no third country. It does mark the third Indian frigate call in Greece announced by the Ministry since August 2025, and it shows how far India Greece defence cooperation has moved, from courtesy calls to a standing working group.
What Does India Greece Defence Cooperation Look Like on the Official Record?
Ministry of Defence releases and Greek statements show a Greek frigate at Mumbai in July 2025, three Indian frigate calls in Greece between August 2025 and October 2026, a first bilateral naval exercise, and an October 2026 Defence Secretary’s visit that ended with a second Joint Working Group meeting in Athens. The relationship began at sea. The latest round added joint staff talks and defence industry to the agenda.
Hellenic Navy ship Psara, a MEKO 200-class frigate, called at Mumbai from 11 to 13 July 2025. INS Tamal, returning from commissioning in Russia, reached Souda Bay on 19 August. Her commanding officer called on the base commander, the NATO Maritime Interdiction Operational Training Centre and the US Navy’s Naval Support Activity, and she held a passage exercise with HS Ritsos on leaving on 22 August.
INS Trikand reached Salamis Bay on 13 September for the first bilateral maritime exercise between the two navies. It ended on 18 September, after a harbour phase at Salamis and a sea phase in the Myrtoan Sea and the central Aegean. The Hellenic Navy said it fielded the frigate Themistokles and HS Pipinos, and that four Trikand crew members embarked on Themistokles.
The ministerial track ran in parallel. The Greek defence minister held talks with Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh in India in February 2026, and the President of Cyprus visited in May. On 8 October, Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh met Greece’s Deputy Minister of Maritime Affairs and Insular Policy, Stefanos Gkikas, in New Delhi. He then travelled to Cyprus on 12 and 13 October and on to Greece, where the Ministry had flagged maritime security and defence industrial cooperation as prominent themes.
On 15 October the second India-Greece Joint Working Group on Defence Cooperation met at the Hellenic Army Academy in Athens. Reports citing the Ministry’s own posts say both sides agreed to expand cooperation in policy planning, joint staff talks, defence industry collaboration, joint exercises and maritime security.
Why Did Libya’s 20 October Vote Bring Greece and Five Partners to the UN?
Libya’s eastern House of Representatives approved the 2019 Turkey-Libya maritime memorandum on 20 October 2026, ending years of withheld consent. Greece says the accord ignores the maritime entitlements of its islands, Crete among them, under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). On 26 October, Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis read a joint rejection at the UN for Greece, Cyprus, Egypt, Bahrain, the UAE and the European Union.
The EU’s High Representative had said on 21 October, in a statement on the ratification, that the memorandum infringes the sovereign rights of third states and is null and void. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan answered on 26 October that the European Union’s and others’ reactions had no legitimate basis. Turkey is not a party to UNCLOS.
Energy sits under the map. Since 2019, Greece has licensed a Chevron-led consortium to look for gas off Crete and has sought its own maritime demarcation with Libya, Reuters reported, and Gerapetritis said Athens stands ready to continue that effort. Turkish support helped Tripoli repel Khalifa Haftar’s assault in 2019-20, and Ankara’s ties with Haftar’s Benghazi administration have since widened through official visits and investment.
None of this has been tested before a court. Greece asked the International Court of Justice in 1976 to delimit its Aegean continental shelf with Turkey, and on 19 December 1978 the Court held that it had no jurisdiction. The question returned to diplomacy and has stayed there for almost half a century.
What Has Ankara Said on Kashmir, and How Did New Delhi Respond?
President Erdogan told the 81st UN General Assembly on 22 September 2026 that South Asian disputes, Kashmir included, should be addressed through dialogue within the UN Charter and relevant resolutions. MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal rejected the reference on 29 September as unwarranted, calling it a matter of India’s territorial integrity in which “no external party has any locus standi.”
Pakistan is the other half of the Turkish file. Ankara signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement with Riyadh and Islamabad on 7 August 2026, under which an armed attack on one of the three is treated as an attack on all. Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has called the pact defensive, and Turkish officials say any support to Saudi Arabia would not include troops in Yemen.
On the industrial side, four MILGEM corvettes are being built for Pakistan, two in Istanbul and two at Karachi Shipyard, and Turkish officials have reportedly discussed assembling combat drones in Pakistan. TES has set out the wider Turkey-Pakistan defence relationship separately.
On Cyprus, Delhi’s wording has stayed consistent. During talks in New Delhi in October 2025, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar backed Cyprus’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation under relevant UN Security Council resolutions. After meeting Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos in New York on 25 September 2026, he posted that the two sides opposed illegal occupation of territory and shared a commitment to UNCLOS as the “Constitution of the seas.”
Asked about North Cyprus on 29 September, the spokesperson pointed to those talks and to India’s support for a settlement under the agreed UN framework. Those positions are the diplomatic base on which India Greece defence cooperation now rests.
Is India Greece Defence Cooperation a Counter to Ankara? A TES Assessment
TES assessment: the official record does not support a stated anti-Turkey purpose. New Delhi’s releases describe maritime and defence-industrial cooperation and name no third country. The convergence lies in positions, not language: UNCLOS, a UN-framework settlement in Cyprus, and respect for territorial integrity. That overlap gives India Greece defence cooperation a strategic logic beyond ship visits, whatever label either capital prefers.
What Does India Greece Defence Cooperation Gain Beyond Ship Visits?
Access comes first. Souda Bay puts Indian ships in the same harbour as a NATO training centre and a US Navy support activity, both named in the Ministry’s programmes for Tamal and for Trishul. Trishul is no newcomer there: a Western Fleet task group that included her called in April 2017, according to a Navy statement at the time, and TES covered her arrival at Plymouth for Exercise Konkan 2026 on 10 October. The Navy’s record induction year, tracked in a separate fleet analysis, widens the pool of ships available for such deployments.
Europe comes second. The Ministry tied the Defence Secretary’s October visit to the India-EU Security and Defence Partnership, and both Greece and Cyprus sit inside the Union. Cyprus held the presidency of the Council of the EU when Jaishankar met Kombos in Brussels in March 2026, and he thanked Nicosia then for advancing India-EU engagement.
Industry is third, and still unproven. The Ministry named defence industrial cooperation as a prominent theme in October, and the working group agreed to expand it. No contract, co-production programme or named company has been announced in the releases TES reviewed. For Indian shipyards and electronics suppliers, a first named programme would be the signal to track.
What Limits a Counter-Turkey Reading?
Delhi’s own statements name no third country, and the ties are young: one bilateral exercise and a second working-group round. TES found no Indian government statement on the Turkey-Libya memorandum itself by 1 November, so the Mediterranean dispute sits outside India’s stated position. The shared ground with Athens is maritime law and territorial integrity, which is why India Greece defence cooperation carries weight without needing a named rival.
What Should Readers Watch After INS Trishul Leaves Souda Bay?
The Ministry of Defence described the September 2025 exercise as the maiden edition, and no date for a second has been announced in the releases TES reviewed. The working group’s agreement to pursue joint exercises makes a second edition the most direct test of the new understanding.
Will New Delhi take a public position on the Turkey-Libya memorandum?
No Indian government statement on the memorandum had surfaced by 1 November. If one comes, India’s existing language on UNCLOS and on a Cyprus settlement under UN resolutions is the likeliest source of its wording. That is TES’s reading, not an announced position.
Will India Greece defence cooperation produce a named industrial programme?
The Ministry listed defence industrial cooperation as a prominent theme of the October visit, and the working group agreed to expand it. A first announced memorandum, contract or co-production project would move India Greece defence cooperation beyond ship visits.
The 1978 judgment left the Aegean to statements, licences and ships’ schedules, and the Mediterranean has been argued that way since. An Indian frigate at Souda Bay adds to that record as a visitor, and New Delhi has built its Greece track on exercises, working groups and maritime law, all of which can grow without naming anyone. The next working-group round and the first named industrial programme will show whether India Greece defence cooperation is heading toward shared production as well as shared harbours.
Source note: Ministry of Defence (PIB) releases, the MEA briefing transcript of 29 September 2026, statements of the European Union and the Hellenic Navy, International Court of Justice case records, and wire and agency reporting on the Libya memorandum and the Mecca agreement. Assessments are TES’s own.
