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**Ayazata** · 17-06-2020, 13:14

Tartışmalarda pratik yapmak isterseniz -> https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Greece...the-Aegean-Sea

Çeşitli bağlantılar

Türkiye'nin imzalamadığı anlaşmanın tam metni

Makale : Turkey and the International law of the sea.
Makale : Turkey Greek Dispute a Greek Perspective.

**Ayazata** · 17-06-2020, 15:01

Yukarıda Quora tartışmasında iki ingilizce metin var, aynen alıntılıyorum. Ufak tefek düzenlemeler yaptım üzerinde.

1. Benim üstteki linkte yaptığım yorumlar

Yorum 1

Greece can not declare 12 miles “unilaterally”. Yes “unilaterally” is the correct term.

In the UN convention which Turkey had not agreed on; “Every State has the right to establish the breadth of its territorial sea up to a limit not exceeding 12 nautical miles, measured from baselines determined in accordance with this Convention.”

It definitely does not say “Every State has the territorial sea of 12 nautical miles measured from baselines”

And the most important issue: 4 countries had voted against UNCLOS (The agreement). One of these countries is Turkey. Others were the US, Venezuela, Israel.

So, Greece can not declare 12 miles of territorial sea limits without a consensus with Turkey.

CASE

Imagine, you are X. You have a border with a neighbor Y.
Y also has another neighbor Z.
Y makes a deal about borderlines with Z.
Y comes to you and says, “Hey X, now we have a new border. I’ve agreed with Z”.

Is that logical? Of course no.

So as a wise man/woman can easily understand; Greece has no point in declaring its territorial sea limits to 12 miles unless she has a consensus with Turkey. (Aka. Turkey’s approval).

Yorum 2
The term “Innocent passage” does not include fishing, resources(including gas), military practices.

As Alexis Tsipras mentioned, the Lausanne Agreement is the base of the peace between Greece and Turkey.
As a result of some bad practices of Turkish officials before, the Lausanne base is now damaged. Status Quo has been changed.

To restore the agreement between Turkey and Greece, the fair territorial sea limit should be 3 miles (Regarding the Lausanne Agreement as Tsipras mentioned in 2017)*.

Then, Greece ships are very welcome to innocently pass through Turkish territorial waters…

*Tsipras calls Erdogan's questioning of Treaty of Lausanne 'dangerous' | Kathimerini

I agree with you, the issue is dangerous.

Yorum 3
Akın Deniz, it’s not about what is thought in our schools and our beliefs. It is about agreements, international law, and the future of the country.

I also like to drink ouzo, dancing sirtaki and the sun on the Greece coasts. This is another issue.

Let’s be fair, and not ignorant. The “islands” are not the islands with the Greek population on it. They are mostly non-populated relatively small islands and they have never been Greek lands. Not even 500 years ago.

There might be *~5000 islands between the Greek and Turkish mainlands. Where roughly *~4000 of them belong to Greece and ~1000 of them belong to Turkey. Most of Turkey’s islands and rocks which are relatively small and unpopulated.

As you know, even for 1-meter square land our villagers pursue blood feud… I agree ouzo and sirtaki are good but now for this debate…

*: Rakamları tahmini yazdım, Süleyman Demirel'in 900 adamız var dediği kalmış aklımda... Kontrol etmek lazım.

2. A Quoran's Comments:

The following map is clearly alarming from the political/military standpoint of view (even if not Quoran) :

Greek and Turkish territorial waters, if 12 miles

As it is obvious, 12 miles would block access of the biggest Turkish ports in Istanbul and neighboring industrial areas, to open waters. (I will clarify “block” below)

Several arguments have been laid; international agreements, Turkish straits, fisheries, etc. Before I discuss these, let us be clear on how relations between any two neighboring countries typically work in real life, irrespective of arguments:

The borders between the two are usually fixed by wars in the past. These are written down in treaties. This is called 'status-quo'. If for any reason, one country unilaterally tries to change the status quo, then there is almost always a war. This is followed by a new treaty, and status-quo again.

Whether we like it or not, things have always worked this way and will continue to do so. The same applies to the Aegean Dispute, as a possible expansion of Greek territorial waters, is a change of status-quo from the Turkish standpoint of view.

Turkey's thesis is: 'The Aegean Sea is a special case, it should have its own arrangements. The treaty of the UN is written down with open waters (like America's Pacific, or Turkey’s Black Sea coast) in mind, which cannot apply to waters like Aegean.’

This is quite logical, as the purpose of the UN is to solve the disputes between countries, not create new ones.

As a matter of fact, the major treaty enforces between Turkey and Greece, the Lausanne Treaty, also implies the special status of the Aegean Islands, in that it forbids Greece to militarize them. These islands in some places come so near to Turkey, that logic would dictate them normally belonging to her.

A typical Greek island off the coasts of Turkey. Meis/Kastellorazo island is only 2 km to Turkish, but 498 km to Greek mainland

However, since most of their inhabitants were Greek, they were left to Greece, with certain provisions. Increasing the territorial waters to 12 miles, in a way violates the soul of the Lausanne, in that it makes the islands a geopolitical tool against Turkey. If Lausanne were discussed with 12 miles territorial waters as a given, then the outcome would most probably be different. Turkey would insist on owning some of those islands, and the outcome would at least partly satisfy her wishes.

(By the way, these islands are now militarized in violation of Lausanne)

(The problem is not that the islands are too close to Turkey, the problem is that they constitute a continuous belt on the Aegean leaving no room for Turkey)

Now the arguments here in the Quora :

1- It is Greece's right, there is an international treaty.

Turkey has not signed this treaty and as such has no obligations to follow it. There is no world government (yet) that dictates individual countries how they should behave. The relations between countries are managed by treaties between them. There is no such thing as international law, except when a country has willingly committed itself to a document. If there is more than one country involved in a treaty, this is usually called an international treaty. If a particular country is not signatory, it doesn't have to follow. This is called 'independence', and should be cherished.

(Being a member of UN, does not mean automatic approval for all UN treaties, otherwise, individual countries would not be asked sign the document separately)

(However, the said treaty does give Greece quite a bit of leverage when discussing a special treaty with Turkey for the Aegean.)

2- Turkey is hypocritical, she has expanded her territorial waters to 12 miles in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.

Well, yes this is Turkey's thesis anyway. If another country is not influenced directly, there is no reason why territorial waters should not be X number of miles. In that case, Greece too can proclaim 12 miles territorial waters at her mainland. (It is probably already doing so)

If it were the case that Turkey had increased her territorial waters somewhere else, for example near Bulgaria and created a situation similar to what Greece is trying to create for Turkey, then, yes, this argument would be valid.

3- What is the problem with making Aegean a Greek lake officially? Isn't it so already?

No, it isn't. There is no treaty giving Greece the 'ownership' of the Aegean. It belongs to everyone in the same way as the Atlantic belongs to everyone.

4- But Turkey wants to make military exercises in the Aegean Sea! And even extract resources!

Yes, that is what every country does, it is quite normal

5- It doesn't really matter to Turkey, it makes no difference for her.

Well then, theoretically it does not matter to Greece either. Why does she want to do that? It must matter somehow…
The reality is that;

Turkish merchant ships will not be able to access open waters without becoming subject to Greek jurisdiction
Greece will be able to block the Turkish navy’s access to open waters in times of crisis.
Greece will be able to block Turkey’s ability to extract resources from the Aegean will be greatly diminished

In a perfect world, none of the above would matter, but we all know that we are not there, so the Turkish side should be alarmed.

6- Turkey has Straits, why does she object to our having something like that in the Aegean?

Well, because choke points artificially cannot be created. Geography is a given and the world history has taken shape around that, many wars have been fought over control of those ‘choke points’. History cannot be rewound.

7- But everybody has signed?

This doesn’t mean anything either, most of the time it turns out to be a virtue not to follow the crowd.

I think the 12 miles issue is a perfect example of how problems can be created out of nowhere and public opinion be manipulated by government/media in accord, to a level of absurdity.

**Ayazata** · 01-07-2020, 00:01

Arkadaşlar, tartışmalara katılmanızı ve fikirlerinizi ifade etmenizi bekliyorum. Hadi bakalım destekleri görelim.

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-Tu...nley-Maragos-1

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