"Turkey aims at reaching a just, equitable and peaceful solution for maritime boundary delimitation in the Eastern Mediterranean, as in the case of Black Sea, where Exclusive Economic Zone delimitation agreements with all littoral states were concluded in a spirit of good neighbourliness.
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All eyes on US, Germany, France, Greece and EU meetings over Turkey
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However, the Eastern Mediterranean has become a region of disputes with overlapping claims of Continental Shelf/ Exclusive Economic Zone (CS/EEZ). This is mainly due to the maximalist position of Greek/Greek Cypriot duo and their unilateral steps that violate the rights of the third parties. The start of the disputes in the region is not recent but was the result of Greek Cypriot Administration’s (GCA) unilateral actions before the settlement of the Cyprus issue. Starting from 2003, GCA signed delimitation agreements with Egypt in 2003, with Lebanon in 2007, and with Israel in 2010 and started drilling in 2011 in violation of Turkey’s and Turkish Cypriots’ (TC) rights.
Meanwhile, Turkey, while refraining from action at sea, was constantly inviting all parties, except for GCA, to engage in negotiations based on international law and the principle of equity.
In this respect, Turkey concluded agreements with Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) in 2011 and with Libya in 2019 regarding the delimitation of maritime jurisdiction areas in the Eastern Mediterranean.
However, the first drilling of GCA left Turkey and TCs with no option but to react to this action and started drilling in the Turkey’s continental shelf.
In July a seismic research vessel, Oruç Reis, was deployed to an area of Turkey’s continental shelf, which was declared to the UN, part of which Greece claims to be overlapping with her own continental shelf.
Greece bases this claim on a 10 km2 island (Kastellorizo), lying 2 km away from the Turkish mainland and 580 km away from the Greek mainland. This creates a 40.000 km2 CS / EEZ area, and this is almost the same size of the total area supposed to be left for Turkey with a coast line of 1792 km.
Greece also wants third parties to support this absurd claim. This approach evidently explains why Turkey insistently refer to the Greek position as a maximalist one.
1 The principle of equity is referred at the Article 74 of for EEZ and Article 83 for CS in the UNCLOS- United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
2 According to the position of Greek/Greek Cypriots, all islands automatically generate CS/EEZ, based merely on the letter of Article 121 of UNCLOS on regime of islands. However, entitlement and delimitation are different concepts.
Islands may get zero or reduced EEZ/CS, if their presence distorts equitable delimitation. This is a fundamental principle of international law. Therefore, there has been a sustained trend in international jurisprudence towards awarding islands a reduced or no effect in maritime boundary delimitation, if the positioning of theisland prevents an equitable delimitation.
Accordingly, senior advisors of Turkish and Greek leaders held series of meetings with German facilitation and agreed to revitalize dialogue channels such as exploratory talks, meetings for confidence building measures and political consultations.
In spite of that, on August 7, hours before the release of the joint statement regarding the restart of talks, Greece announced the signing of a maritime boundary delimitation agreement with Egypt, which violates Turkey’s continental shelf.
With this agreement, which, as far as Turkey is concerned is null and void.
Greece demonstrated her unwillingness to start an honest and sincere dialogue with Turkey.
Following this, Turkey has resumed hydrocarbon research activities within her own continental shelf.
The Turkish Navy has also been deployed to exercise self-defence for the seismic research ship, under strict orders to not to open fire first.
Turkey believes current issues in the Eastern Mediterranean have to resolved bilaterally, instead of creating a multilateral deadlock. Turkey is ready engage on genuine and sincere dialogue.
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