by Vasilis Giavris (Lawyer and Political Scientist)
"Greece has only de facto, and also temporary, rule over EGAYDAAK and its administration there does not invalidate the fact that those islands are the territory of the Republic of Turkey,"
*Turkish Minister of Defence, İsmet Yılmaz, (Statement made in March 2015)
"I suggested, and came across with strong reactions, Greeks and Turks to form together a coastguard which will patrol the sea areas between Turkey and the Greek islands. Turks agree, Greeks don’t,...should we fight over for a sea area of 10 kilometers wide, who is responsible and where or should we try to save human lives?”.
*Jean-Claude Juncker President of European Commission (Statement made in November 2015)
The magnitude and gravity of the refugee crisis in Europe makes it imperative that both Greece and Turkey work together to find ways to avert refugee suffering and deaths, deal with security issues and fight human trafficking. However, Turkey must not be permitted to use the refugee crisis as a vehicle to assert sovereignty over Greek islands, waters, airspace and continental sea shelf.
Recent commentary stemming from the European Union about joint patrols and cost guards in the Aegean Sea at best fail to recognise that Turkey continues to challenge and dispute the sovereignty of numerous Greek islands, islets and rocks in the Aegean Sea. According to Turkey, such territories have not been specifically ceded to Greece by way of international treaties and are "grey zones". In effect Turkey refuses to recognise EU borders in the Aegean Sea.
Turkey continues to maintain that no agreement concerning the delimitation of maritime boundaries between the two countries exist in the Aegean Sea and as such these are territories without sovereignty and therefore stateless!
Turkey has gone as far as to claim that 132 islands and islets in the Aegean, currently under Greek administration, belong to Turkey including five Greek inhabited islets in the proximity of Samos and the Dodecanese that have been under Greek administration since 1912 and 1947 respectively.
Legality of Turkish Claims
The claims made by Turkey lack legal merit under international treaty and customary law. Greece, quite rightly, denies the existence of any grey zones in the Aegean Sea and denies the existence of any dispute in this regard. The issue of sovereignty in the region has long been settled by the Lausanne Peace Treaty of 1923 and the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947.
The Lausanne Peace Treaty 1923, to which both Greece and Turkey are signatories, settled the Anatolian and East Thracian parts of the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire and the borders between Greece and Turkey. Pursuant to Article 12 (1) of this Treaty, the islands of the Eastern Mediterranean including Lemnos, Samothrace, Mytilene, Chios, Samos and Nikaria were ceded to Greece whilst the islands of Imbros, Tenedos, the Rabbit Islands and islands situated at less than three miles from the Asiatic coast remained under Turkish sovereignty.
Pursuant to Article 15 of the Lausanne Peace Treaty 1923, Turkey renounced in favour of Italy all rights and title over the Dodecanese islands, Kastellorizo and the islets dependent thereon. Moreover, pursuant to Article 14 of the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947, signed by Italy and the allied powers after the culmination of World War II, Italy ceded full sovereignty over the Dodecanese islands as well as the adjacent islets to Greece.
This treaty makes it clear that all islands and islets situated outside the three mile zone around the Turkish mainland coast, other than the islands of Imbros, Tenedos and the Rabbit Islands, have been awarded to Greece and those located within this zone awarded to Turkey.
The demarcation is clear-cut which explains why there is no need for these treaties to refer by name to all the islands and islets especially given that there are over two thousand islands and islets involved. Turkey erroneously interprets this provision to mean that all islands and islets not specifically named in Article 12 or not specifically ceded to Greece by way of Treaty belong to Turkey as the rightful heir to the Ottoman Empire or otherwise remain as "grey zones" that need to be delimited by way of agreement between Turkey and Greece.
Whilst it is important that Greece and Turkey work together on refugees this does not have to be at the expense of the implementation of United Nations Resolutions, International Conventions, European Acquis and International Law in the Aegean Sea.
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