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Athens, Greece – Greece doubled its western territorial waters in the Ionian Sea to 12 nautical miles (22 kilometers), the maximum allowed by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS.
The law added 13,000 square kilometers to the sovereign domain of Greece, equivalent to 10 percent of its territory.
“The extension of territorial waters to the west inevitably sends a message to the east,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in parliament on Wednesday.
“Under the same legal regime, we can solve our big problem with Turkey, as long as its leaders abandon this dispute monologue and sit down to talk.”
On Monday, neighboring Greece and Turkey will begin exploratory talks in Istanbul, after a five-year hiatus, aimed at establishing maritime borders, a source of alarming friction over the past year.
Greece and Turkey were on the brink of a military confrontation last August, after Turkey launched its seismic reconnaissance ship Oruc Reis accompanied by a small naval fleet to explore for submarine oil and gas in the eastern Mediterranean waters that Greece claims. as part of its exclusive continental shelf. Economic Zone (EEZ) but that Turkey disputes.
Although these zones do not imply absolute sovereignty over territorial waters, they allow coastal states to exercise sovereign rights to explore and exploit mineral and living resources.
The possibility of conflict has alarmed both NATO, of which Greece and Turkey are members, and the European Union.
“In the talks with Greece, we hope that the problems will be addressed within the framework of rights, law and equity, and that solutions will be found,” Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said on Saturday.
The talks that begin Monday are informal and non-binding, but could eventually produce a formal negotiation process resulting in a treaty or agreement to seek arbitration at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.
If nothing happens, Greek-Turkish tensions will remain, with potentially dire consequences.
What’s on the agenda?
Greece has always maintained that it reserves the right to declare territorial waters of 12 nautical miles in the Aegean, but this is closely related to the issue of the continental shelf and the EEZ.
Greece’s thousands of islands in the Aegean, some of which lie just a few kilometers off the Turkish coast, would give it sovereignty over 71.5 percent of the sea versus 8.7 percent for Turkey under a regime of 12 nautical miles.
That would leave only 19.8 percent open for discussion.
Turkey is not a signatory to UNCLOS and does not agree with its provision of a continental shelf and an EEZ for the islands.
It does not dispute the islands’ rights to territorial waters, but opposes the 12 nautical mile distance and has threatened Greece with military action if it exercises its rights under UNCLOS.
Monday’s talks are further complicated by the fact that Athens and Ankara disagree on what should be discussed.
Turkey wants a broad agenda that includes discussing the demilitarization of the Greek islands in the eastern Aegean.
It also disputes ownership of at least 18 of those islands, areas it calls “gray zones,” and has even called for a revision of the Treaty of Lausanne, which established most of Turkey’s modern borders in 1923.
Greece wants a more restricted agenda that does not question the territory, or its right to 12 nautical miles of territorial waters under UNCLOS.
“Both sides will have to show flexibility in the agenda,” Panayotis Ioakimidis, professor of international and European studies at the University of Athens, told Al Jazeera.
“Turkey will have to refrain from issues such as island demilitarization and so-called gray areas. Greece will have to show flexibility and agree to discuss territorial waters, ”he said.
Ioakimidis said the main topic of previous talks was territorial waters, not the EEZ and the continental shelf. Greece and Turkey held 60 rounds of talks between 2002 and 2016.
“In fact, we had come to something close to an agreement,” he said.
The Turkish seismic research vessel Oruc Reis sails the Mediterranean after leaving a port in Antalya, Turkey [File: Turkish Ministry of Energy/Handout via Reuters]
A senior Greek diplomatic source confirmed it on condition of anonymity. In 2001, Greece and Turkey held their first exploratory talks in secret.
“There was no formal agreement … and each party has a slightly different interpretation of what was said, but overall the talks agreed on 12 nautical miles of Greek territorial waters off the continental coasts of the Aegean, and possibly for the Cyclades. , but 6 nautical miles for the islands of the eastern Aegean, “the source told Al Jazeera.
Despite the UNCLOS, Ioakimidis does not believe that Greece can ultimately stick to its claim of 12 nm of territorial waters across the Aegean.
“I have no doubt that [Turkey would declare war]”He said, and that Turkey favors a” differentiated extension of territorial waters “as the one informally agreed in 2001.
Greece is on firmer ground when it comes to ownership of the eastern Aegean islands, defined by the Treaty of Lausanne.
“The Greek arguments on all these matters are extremely strong in law, so I don’t understand why they wouldn’t bring their strongest legal points to the table,” says Pavlos Eleftheriadis, professor of public international law at the University of Oxford.
“If the Greeks are not willing to discuss sovereignty issues, the negotiations will fail, because you cannot negotiate an exclusive economic zone or a continental shelf unless you know where the starting point is: which islands are Turkish and which islands are Greeks, “says Eleftheriadis. .
The Greeks largely view the Aegean as a Greek sea, dating back to Homeric times.
Turkey has also raised expectations at home by speaking of a Blue Homeland, a doctrine of naval expansion, encompassing much of what Greece views as its continental shelf.
“Maritime zones are a source of national pride for [Turkish president Recep Tayyip] Erdogan, because Turkey has harbored the ambition to become an energy center for some years, ”in particular because Turkey has limited hydrocarbon resources, said Can Erimtan, an independent historian and geopolitical commentator.
If neither government can reach a compromise, the only peaceful solution, experts say, would be arbitration in The Hague.
Officially, Turkey does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction, but here too, exploratory talks have paid off in the past.
“In 2004 we informally agreed on a package of measures that included going to The Hague,” says Ioakimidis.
Some Greek politicians say that Greece should broaden its agenda and use this crisis to resolve all its differences with Turkey, including the divided island of Cyprus.
Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974, in response to a Greek-inspired coup on the island. The Greek Cypriots now live in the Republic of Cyprus in the south of the island, while the Turkish Cypriots live in a northern enclave still occupied by Turkish troops.
Greece and Cyprus requested EU sanctions against Turkey in October, in retaliation for Turkish oil and gas exploration off the coast of Cyprus.
“The key to peace in the Eastern Mediterranean, to a large extent, is solving the Cyprus problem. Where is this, Prime Minister? Is it off the agenda? “Syriza opposition MP Nikos Voutsis said on January 20.
Because right now?
Turkey has diplomatically isolated itself through recent military interventions in Syria and Libya, and by supporting Azerbaijan in its conflict with Armenia in the Caucasus, violating Greek airspace and invading Greek and Cypriot EEZs.
The newly elected US president, Joe Biden, is less friendly to Erdogan than his predecessor, and the ailing Turkish economy needs greater access to the stable EU market.
“Turkey … wants a rapprochement with the EU, but it cannot do it without a rapprochement with Greece,” says Ioakimidis.
Erdogan, who has been fiercely critical of the EU’s stance on the Eastern Mediterranean in the past, told EU ambassadors in Ankara this month that he was ready to improve ties.
Turkey’s fight for space in the region has also prompted Greece to act. In 2014, Greece began selling offshore oil and gas concessions, but interest has waned as oil majors are wary of bidding for blocks Turkey will contest.
Last year Greece signed agreements delineating maritime EEZs with Italy and Egypt.
In the areas governed by these agreements, Greece is now expanding its territorial waters. Next, it plans to legislate 12 nautical miles of territorial waters south and east of Crete.
Greece is under pressure for other reasons too. A 2014 EU directive called on all member states to zone their territorial waters and EEZs for all economic activity, including fishing, fish farming, hydrocarbon exploration and renewable energy production, and the deadline is March. of 2021.
Perhaps the economic outlook in the region and the drain created by defense spending, as well as the continuing threat of armed confrontation, will ultimately push Greece and Turkey into a bold political settlement, or at least legal arbitration.
“Violence does not produce legal results,” Mitsotakis said in parliament, “but law does produce peace.”
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