Turkish daily Today’s Zaman (English edition) reports that in a written parliamentary question on Friday, a Republican People’s Party (CHP, the main opposition party in Turkey) deputy has demanded to know what Turkey will do about 16 islands in the Aegean Sea that he has said “were illegally seized by Greece”.
Niyazi Nefi Kara of the CHP, claimed that 16 islands and a rocky formation are under Greek occupation. He also said the islands and islets in question are within Turkish territorial waters. The written question, which is addressed to Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, concerns the islands Oinousses, Foimena, Fournoi, Agathonisi, Arkoi, Farmakonisi, Kalolimnos, Platia, Kyra Panagia, Gyali, Syrna as well as the islands Gavdos, Dhia, Dionisades, Gaidhouronisi and Koufonisi near Crete.
Defense Minister İsmet Yılmaz admitted in Parliament about a year ago that the islands in question, are under de facto Greek control but rejected opposition accusations that the government had relinquished its territorial rights. “Even now the Greek government is administering the islands only temporarily and on a de facto basis. Those islands are part of Turkish territory,” Yılmaz responded in the face of fierce criticism, noting that the issue “is being discussed with Greece”.
The Turkish government claims that some of the Aegean islands near the Turkish coast belonged to the Ottoman empire and therefore to the successor of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey.
As for the islands off the hydrocarbon rich south coast of Crete “they are not named in the treaty that pertains to Crete, therefore still belong to Turkey”.
As Yılmaz underlined in Parliament back in March last year, the islands in question are not among those that were handed over to Greece by the Treaty of Lausanne concluded in 1923 or by the 1947 Paris Peace Treaties.
The Turkish claims have been dismissed by NATO and international law in the past.
The CHP deputy also demanded that Çavuşoğlu clarify a claim regarding a Greek helicopter’s violation of Turkish airspace for an hour off the Bodrum coast on Jan. 28. The public has a right to know if the Greek helicopter was warned or intercepted by Turkish jets, Kara said.
Kara also said in his question that photographs appeared the same day on the website of the Greek General Staff, which revealed that a Greek flag has been raised on the island of Kalolimnos in the Dodecanese . He also asked the Turkish foreign minister to urgently inform the public if Turkish F-16 fighters were intercepted by Greek jets over the island in question.
Turkey also disputed the right of the Greek armed forces to carry out a search and rescue operation on the island of Kinaros near Amorgos, following a helicopter accident last Thursday where 3 Greek airmen lost their lives, claiming that the island was within the Turkish Search and Rescue Region.
The Turkish claims on the Aegean are a major issue of contention between Greece and Turkey in the last 40 years. It was with this in mind that Athens set conditions in order to accept the German-Turkish plan for a NATO operation in the Aegean aiming to take refugees flow under control.
