Greece to Approve Maritime Deals as Tensions With Turkey Rise
By Sotiris Nikas- Athens plans to extend its territorial waters in Ionian Sea
- Focus shifts to rift with Ankara in potentially lucrative zone
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Greek lawmakers are set to ratify agreements with Italy and Egypt on maritime boundaries as tensions rise in the eastern Mediterranean over exclusive economic rights and as Greece says it will extend its territorial waters in the Ionian Sea.
“The two agreements resolve decades-old issues and are based on international law,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told lawmakers Wednesday before a vote on the two accords.
Greece signed an initial maritime border deal with Italy in June, marking out exclusive economic zones between the two European Union members in the Ionian Sea. Two months later Athens reached a similar agreement with Egypt on a partial delimitation of their exclusive zones in the Mediterranean.
The accords “recognize the exclusive economic zones and sovereign rights of our islands,” Mitsotakis said. “They mark Greece’s return to the role of guarantor of Europe’s eastern borders and interests in the Mediterranean.”
Tensions have been high as a Turkish seismic survey ship has searched for natural gas over the last two weeks — after the deal between Greece and Egypt was signed — in a region overlapping part of an area Greece says is within its exclusive economic zone.
Read More: How Tensions Are Rising Over Mediterranean Gas Fields: QuickTake
Greece says that islands must be taken into account in delineating a country’s continental shelf, in line with the UN Law of the Sea, which Turkey has not signed.
Ankara argues that a country’s continental shelf should be measured from its mainland, and that the area south of the Greek island of Kastellorizo — a few kilometers off Turkey’s southern coast — therefore falls within its exclusive zone.
Disputed Waters
Competing claims over the Eastern Mediterranean
Sources: Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Anadolu Agency; Greek government; Flanders Marine Institute
Note: Some Exclusive Economic Zones are disputed
The new agreements mean Greece has effectively increased its sovereign rights zone by 38,000 thousand square meters. The final demarcation confirms that islands have an exclusive economic zone and a corresponding continental shelf. “Greece actively maintains its sovereign rights,” Mitsotakis said.
Turkey says close proximity of Greek islands to the Turkish coast makes Greece’s demands on maritime borders in the eastern Mediterranean unacceptable to Ankara.
“We will never make any concessions on what belongs to us,” Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday in the province of Mus. “To this end, we’re determined to do whatever it takes in political, economic and military terms.”
Read More: Here’s What Is at Stake as Turkey-Greece Tensions Rise Again
The Greek premier also announced that the government will soon submit to parliament draft legislation under which Greece will extend its western territorial waters in the Ionian Sea to 12 nautical miles from six. The move, also announced by the previous government of Alexis Tsipras, is in line with international law, Greece says.
“Greece is getting bigger,” Mitsotakis said on Wednesday. “Others have also said it, but we’re the ones doing it.”
— With assistance by Onur Ant