Former Chief of Naval Forces Rear Admiral Cihat Yayci who opened an important field for Turkey over Mavi Vatan (Blue Homeland) doctrine, assessed developments in Eastern Mediterranean to Milli Gazete.
Yayci Pasha, who said that Exclusive Economic Zone (MEB) should be declared in the Eastern Mediterranean immediately, said that Greece will never give up on the Megalo idea goal.
Greece claims that Meis Island has a continental shelf and exclusive economic zone right. Based on this claim, it creates a 4 thousand times larger sea area for itself. How realistic is this claim to make Greece valid for other islands?
Essentially, everyone tries to impose the hundreds of miles of sea areas between the Greek Islands of Mesa, Rhodes, Kerpe, Kashot and Crete as if there was a land and a snal uninterrupted coastal line from Meis to Crete. It bases all its claims on this virtual shore, the majority of which is the sea. There may be those who are unaware of this nonsense and unfortunately think as if Greece has long coasts in the Eastern Mediterranean.
However, the International Law of the Sea states that "Straight Baseline" can be drawn for states with a coastline only on the condition that the coastal topography complies with the principles of Article 7 of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Moreover, apart from the "Normal Baseline" and "Straight Baseline" drawings, as a special condition, UNCLOS article 47 includes the methods for determining the "Archipelago Baseline", but this special method includes the "Archipelago State" in UNCLOS article 46 (State of the Islands/Archipelago). It is clear that Greece cannot benefit from the special provisions in Article 47 of the UNCLOS since it is not an Islands State or an Archipelago State. Because Greece is a mainland state, not a state like Indonesia that consists only of islands.
Moreover, the faces of the Greek islands facing the Eastern Mediterranean have a total coastline of 167 kilometers and it is illegal to request a maritime jurisdiction against the Anatolian coast of 1870 kilometers. Also, islands less than 200 miles from the mainland do not produce an EEZ, in other words they are included in the EEZ area of the mainland, they cannot form an EEZ on it. As a result, Greece's Crete and Rhodes islands in creating the boundary waters by drawing straight main line to the sea ignore the existence and determine this from even the Ministry of Education in terms of Turkey's maritime rights and interests as never acceptable, is contrary to international maritime law and a violation of law.
Just behind the island of Meis and ignoring the Anatolian coasts, where it sits on the continental shelf, it is an exclusive economic zone. If we show an example to this; Spain has islands on the Moroccan coast. In the upper part of the map below, you see the real EEZ of Spain, and in the lower part, what the EEZ would have been if Spain had made unlawful demands like Greece. Spain and Morocco act in accordance with the maritime law, based on the mainland in delimitation, abide by the principles of the superiority of geography, non-closure and proportionality, and do not grant maritime jurisdiction to the opposite Spanish islands (in front of the Moroccan mainland) other than their territorial waters. Therefore, the claim that Greece is the EEZ of Meis and other islands does not coincide with the legal and actual facts and is definitely not an acceptable situation in terms of international law.
Maritime border between Turkey and Greece has not yet been determined in an agreement. Therefore, both Turkey and the width of the Aegean Sea, the Greek territorial waters six nautical miles is considered, but Greece wants to remove it 12 miles, experienced steps to be taken in this process, can turn the situation in favor of Turkey?
Greece, which disrupted the balance of Lausanne in 1936 and increased the width of its territorial waters to 6 miles, now wants to increase it to 12 miles and transform the Sea of Islands (the Sea of Islands) into a Greek lake. As it is known, the Turkish Grand National Assembly announced to the world public opinion on June 8, 1995, its determination to protect the vital rights and interests of our country in case Greece expands its territorial waters. If Greece finds suitable conditions and increases its territorial waters to 12 miles; Notwithstanding egaydaak, Islands in the Sea offshore areas ratio of approximately 20% and Turkey's territorial waters to the coating rate to 8.7%, while in Greece will rise to 62%. In this way, in the Eastern Islands Sea, which is important in terms of continental shelf sharing, Turkish territorial waters will increase by 17%, Greek territorial waters will increase by 60%, and open sea areas will decrease by 64%, to 9%. If EGAYDAAK is accepted under the sovereignty of Greece, the rate of covering the territorial waters of Greece will increase to 72% in the entire Islands Sea and 68% in the eastern Islands Sea. the situation will become even worse. Thus, the Sea of Islands will turn into a Greek inland sea, except for two small offshore sections surrounded by Greek territorial waters in two separate regions of the Sea of Islands. In such a case, Turkey's territorial integrity will be disrupted; Approximately 90% of the continental shelf and exclusive economic zone of the Islands Sea will belong to Greece; Turkey's Islands (Aegean Sea) with extraction and exploitation of natural resources for the Sea, fishing, economic activities such as tourism and scientific research shall be restricted to a very large extent. Moreover, our military ships will be unable to conduct training and exercises. In short, by expanding its territorial waters to 12 miles, Greece will establish absolute dominance in the Sea of Islands by solving all problems in its favor, especially the continental shelf, the exclusive economic zone and airspace.
As a matter of fact, the news and comments in the Greek media are in line with this expectation. In fact, even an increase of one mile in territorial waters compared to the 6-mile regime will cause a decrease of about 12% of the high seas in the Islands Sea.
When the issue is examined from a legal perspective; While article 3 of the 1982 UNCLOS gives states the right to determine the width of the black water up to 12 miles; It does not dictate the width of its territorial waters as 12 miles in absolute terms, the provision also reveals the existence of cases in which territorial waters should be less than 12 miles. On the other hand, 1982 BMDHS; The 123rd article dictates that the general rules cannot be applied for the Sea of Islands, which has the status of a semi-closed sea.
Article 300, on the other hand, is governed by the provision that "States parties must fulfill their obligations under the provisions of this contract in good faith and use the rights, powers and freedoms recognized in this contract in a way that does not constitute abuse of the right" and prevents Greece from expanding its territorial waters unilaterally. .
In terms of this legal situation, the problem is mainly due to the unilateral and illegal expansion of the territorial waters of Greece.
At this point, I think the issue that should be demanded should be returning to the balance of Lausanne and reducing the territorial waters to 3 miles. As a result of the 3-mile territorial waters to be re-established in accordance with the Lausanne Treaty, peace, stability and security will be established again in the Sea of Islands (Aegean).
The 12 Islands were handed over to Greece by the Paris Treaty in 1947 on the condition that Italy does not have weapons, but now Greece violates this prerequisite. Doesn't this mean a breach of agreement?
In accordance with the relevant provisions of the 1923 Lausanne and 1947 Paris Peace Treaties, Thassos, Ipsara, Bozbaba, Samothirek, Limni, Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Ahikeria, Batnoz, Lipso, Ileryöz, Kelemez, Kos, İncirli, Sömbeki, İleki, Herke, Rhodes, Kerpe , Çoban Island, Istanbul and Meis Island are in non-military status.
- This non-military status; the deployment of all kinds of weapons, all kinds of flights of military aircraft including exercise / training, transit passage, permanent / temporary deployment of military aircraft, excluding the fortifications / fortification / base facilities and internal security forces, on these. it is banned.
- The "Non-Military Status" of the Islands includes territorial waters and airspace as well as the territorial parts.
- On the basis of being placed under non-military status of the islands, the proximity of these islands to Turkey and hence their importance lies in terms of supply security of Turkey. Turkey's security is essential.
- The Greek sovereignty over islands Turkey's security concerns, but are offset by non-military status of the islands, put them under.
- When the minutes and documents of the 1923 Lausanne Peace Treaty were examined; islands in the attack will be directed against Turkey by land, sea, and from the military airbase in the format to be used as the definitive text on the provisions of the agreement it is stated that free will be included.
I would like to draw attention to the islands that were transferred to Greece on condition that they have non-military status, but where the transfer requirement was eliminated by Greece itself by militarization and armament, and their positions near our Anatolian coasts.
In this case, it is clear that the condition for the transfer of sovereignty of these islands is to have non-military status. While it should have this non-military status, Greece, which has broken this status, has essentially eliminated the condition of transferring the sovereignty of these islands to itself. Turkey should urgently requested that these islands arınıdırl soldiers and guns and all sorts of legal and diplomatic initiatives should think.
Drawn in 2002 Seville 'is a map which is completely against Turkey. Who or who drew this map or why? What was the purpose of this piar study on the map?
European Union commissioned by the University of Seville and Turkey does not count the rights given to us by map area of 41 thousand km2, in fact, is the area we need to have 189 thousand km2. In other words, they wanted to take 148 thousand km2 of homeland from us. This map has been used and used by many institutions and establishments of the EU, especially the energy agency. The EU has already criticized Turkey and whether the appeal and it is understood that these points are taken into account based on the political map. Purpose known to have very rich hydrocarbon deposits in the eastern Mediterranean to share the exclusion of Turkey.