Μake us preferred on Google Former Greek foreign minister and Athens Mayor Dora Bakoyannis on Monday again called for dialogue with Turkey, while at the same warning that Ankara’s continued threats and unilateral maritime claims undermine efforts to resolve differences between the two countries.
Speaking at the opening of the 49th annual conference on Oceans Law & Policy at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Bakoyannis said Greece seeks a constructive relationship with Turkey and that she has consistently supported dialogue.
“However, threats of force undermine it,” she said, arguing that Greece’s commitment to dialogue and its determination to defend itself “go hand in hand.”
Bakoyannis said she found it difficult to believe that any Greek or Turkish citizen seriously regarded Greece as a threat to Turkey’s sovereignty or sovereign rights, adding that the same could not be said in reverse.
She pointed to Turkey’s longstanding casus belli over a possible Greek extension of territorial waters in the Aegean beyond the current six nautical miles, as well as what she described as official Turkish efforts to exploit conflicts in the region to conclude maritime delimitation agreements lacking legal grounds – a direct reference to the 2019 Turkey-Libya maritime deal, which is considered by Greece, regional countries and the EU as baseless and illegal.
She also referred to reports of plans in Ankara to enshrine unilateral maritime claims in legislation that would disregard the sovereign rights or sovereignty of Greek islands.
“The Mediterranean is a sea of islands,” Bakoyannis said, stressing that denying islands the maritime rights recognized under international law would disregard the geography that defines the region.
She described the issue as existential for Greece and noted that if Turkey dropped what she called its “revisionist claims” against Greece, the bilateral dispute would end, while Greece was prepared to pursue the delimitation of overlapping maritime claims.
“Of course, maritime entitlements and the delimitation of overlapping claims are distinct questions,” she said. “Greece is ready to pursue that process.”
Bakoyannis called for Turkey to withdraw its threat of war as “a concrete step towards a better and more prosperous future for our two countries and the Mediterranean as a whole.”
The conference, held under the theme “Maritime Security in the Mediterranean Sea & Beyond,” brings together about 60 experts from more than 25 countries to examine maritime boundaries, shipping, critical infrastructure, migration, marine biodiversity, emerging technologies and the law of naval warfare.
Greece-Turkey maritime dispute
Greece and Turkey maintain fundamentally different positions on the scope of their maritime dispute in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean. Athens maintains that the delimitation of the continental shelf and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) is the sole bilateral dispute that could be referred to international adjudication, while rejecting Turkish claims concerning Greek sovereignty and the status of Aegean islands. Ankara maintains that additional issues remain unresolved, including territorial waters, maritime jurisdiction and continental-shelf delimitation.
The differences have been highlighted by competing maritime spatial-planning maps, disputes over marine research and disagreements over maritime infrastructure.
Greece has also flatly rejected Turkey’s “Mavi Vatan,” or “Blue Homeland,” doctrine and associated maritime claims as revisionist, unfounded and irredentist.
The Turkey-Libya maritime memorandum remains another major point of disagreement, with Athens rejecting it as incompatible with international law and arguing that it disregards the maritime rights of Greek islands. Turkey has also objected to aspects of the planned Great Sea Interconnector (GSI) undersea electricity link between Greece, Cyprus and Israel, citing its own interpretation of maritime jurisdiction.
Greece is a party to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which it regards as the principal legal framework for maritime delimitation. Turkey is not a party to UNCLOS and has maintained its position as a “persistent objector” over decades, while at the same time applying UNCLOS a la carte where it suits its interests, i.e. the Black Sea.
