Ankara on Tuesday again resorted to saber-rattling after Greece’s recently resigned foreign minister said Athens is considering extending certain territorial water boundaries to the internationally accepted 12-mile limit.
“It is not possible to tolerate steps where there is no bilateral agreement on the Aegean where the two countries have mutual shores,” Reuters quoted Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy as warning in a statement.
Turkey, a perennial EU candidate-state, is one of a handful of countries that ignore the Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Instead, successive Turkish governments have insisted on bilateral negotiations to delineate sovereign rights in the Aegean.
In an expected reaction, a foreign ministry spokesman in Athens replied that Greece’s rights are not dictated by third parties.
“The extension of the coastal zone is a legal and inalienable sovereign right of Greece, in accordance with international law … The relevant decision for an extension is exclusively up to Greece, which has the right to extend its territorial waters whenever, and as, it sees fit.”
In a handover ceremony on Saturday morning, former foreign minister Nikos Kotzias said Greece would increase its territorial waters from six to 12 nautical miles, but in the Ionian Sea. Later reports claimed, however, that sea boundaries would also be extended in certain parts of the western Aegean.
