Greece’s violations of law in the Aegean. (THREAD)

Greece’s demands endamaging the geopolitical balance in Aegean are related to its historical ideology defined as “Megali Idea”.

The main reasons of the problems in Aegean consist of

- Greece’s decision to increase its territorial sea to 6 miles

- Greece’s attempts to use FIR (Flight Information Region) as Greek sovereignty region

- Greece’s decision of arming the islands which were demilitarised

- Greece’s demands on continental shelfs, which spurn Turkey’s natural rights.

- Greece’s desire to intersect the search and rescue area with FIR, which it declared to IMO (International Maritime Organization) in 1987.

Greece tries to establish a correlation between Aegean and Mediterranean with unity of statement.

It was stated by the Greek Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense at the so-called independence day ceremonies of the Greek Cypriot Administration of Southern Cyprus on 01 October 2019 that "the entire region from Thrace to Cyprus is accepted as a single region".

Greece is such a revisionist state. It has always extended borders according to the ideology of Megali Idea, even though it lost the wars.

Greece exploits and distorts international law in order to make real the Megali Idea.

Megali Idea, which means Great Idea, is an ideology arised after the collapse of the Byzantine Empire. It aims to establish the Great Greek Empire. According to this, Dodecanese and Western Anatolia belong to the Greek state.

The picture above shows the Greek aggression.

According to Lausanne Treaty, all the islands in the Aegean, excluding the islands handed on by the Ottoman Empire, belong to the Republic of Turkey with its right as the successor of the Ottoman Empire.

Greece claims that those islands were handed on by Greeks to Turks; therefore, they belong to Greece. However, those islands were taken from Venetians and Genoses by Turks.

Article 16 of the Treaty of Lausanne shows that Turkey reserves its rights over the islands.

According to Article 14 of the Paris Peace Treaty signed on 1947, “14 islands transferred to Italy by Article 15 of the Lausanne peace treaty have been taken from the Italians and given to Greece on condition that they remain in non-military status”.

Under international law, no state can transfer more than its rights to another state (Nemo plus juris transfer potest quam ipse habet). In this case, there are islands, even though they were not ceded to Italy by Turkey, which were ceded to Greece by Italy.

In fact, according to Article 16 of the Treaty of Lausanne, the transfer of these islands should had been approved by Turkey, before they were ceded to Greece.

Greece has militarised 18 islands which should have remained in demilitarised. In 1952, it established an airfield and other facilities on the island of Leros that can also be used for military purposes.

Greece has made the islands a military base zone. At this time, 18 islands have been armed and converted into an arsenal. The airfield was built and deployed fighter aircraft to the islands of Limni, Lesbos, Kos and Rhodes for jet action against Turkey.