ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

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The territorial conflicts between Greece and Turkey describe the dispute over the border of both countries and their sovereign rights in the Mediterranean. The current positions of the two neighbouring countries in the conflict over territories in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean since the 1980s are mutually exclusive. Both NATO members fear that they will be geographically constricted by each other off their own coast.

Position of Turkey
Within the framework of its doctrine “Blue Fatherland” (“Mavi Vatan”) promoted especially under the Erdoğan government, Turkey claims large sea areas off its coasts. It rejects the idea of starting from the Greek continental shelf, because then the many small Greek islands such as Kastellorizo, which lies two kilometres off the Turkish coast, could claim a sea area of 40,000 square kilometres for itself. According to its own view, Turkey claims a total of 462,000 square kilometres in the Black Sea, Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean. If implemented, the Aegean to the east coast of Crete and parts of the Mediterranean Sea far south of Cyprus would belong to the Turkish Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and the Greek islands in the area would become enclaves. Turkey has not yet acceded to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and threatens war if it is applied by Greece.

Position of Greece
Greece refers to international legal norms such as the Convention on the Law of the Sea, according to which all Greek Aegean islands have maritime areas off the Turkish coast. Each inhabited Aegean island with its own continental shelf forms the basis for an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Athens assumes that the islands are a continuation of the Greek mainland. On the basis of the Convention on the Law of the Sea, a state is free and recognised under international law to extend its maritime borders to 12 nautical miles. Greece has not yet applied this right due to the threat of war from Turkey.

History
As early as 1936, Greece expanded its territorial waters from three to six nautical miles in the Aegean Sea. Turkey followed suit in 1964 and extended its seaside border to six miles. Greece reserves the right to extend its sovereign rights to the twelve nautical miles permitted under international law. If Greece were to implement this, the Aegean would become, in the eyes of Turkey, practically a Greek inland sea. Turkey therefore officially declared an extension to twelve miles through Greece in the Aegean to be a cause of war. An extension of its territorial waters to twelve nautical miles, declared by Greece in 2021, related only to the western waters towards Italy.

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