expansionist Greece violated 1923 Treaty of Lausanne
and in 1936 Greece illegally increased territorial water to 6nm from 3 nm
Cry baby,cry:
Greece’s right to militarise Limnos and Samothrace was recognized by Turkey, in accordance with the letter sent to the Greek Prime Minister on 6 May 1936 by the Turkish Ambassador in Athens at the time, Roussen Esref, upon instructions from his Government. The Turkish government reiterated this position when the then Turkish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Rustu Aras, in his address to the Turkish National Assembly on the occasion of the ratification of the Montreux Treaty, unreservedly recognized Greece’s legal right to deploy troops on Limnos and Samothrace, with the following statement : “The provisions pertaining to the islands of Limnos and Samothrace, which belong to our neighbor and friendly country Greece and were demilitarized in application of the 1923 Lausanne Treaty, were also abolished by the new Montreux Treaty, which gives us great pleasure” (Gazette of the Minutes of the Turkish National Assembly, volume 12, July 31/1936, page 309). During the same period, Turkey gave similar assurances on this subject to the governments of interested third countries.
The status of Mytilene, Chios, Samos and Ikaria
The Lausanne Treaty
makes no mention of these islands having been granted demilitarized status.
The Greek government simply commits to not establishing naval bases or fortifications there in accordance with Article 13 of the Treaty. More specifically, this article specifies that :
“With a view to ensuring the maintenance of peace, the Greek Government undertakes to observe the following restrictions in the islands of Mytilene, Chios, Samos and Nikaria:
• No naval base and no fortification will be established in the said islands.
• Greek military aircraft will be forbidden to fly over the territory of the Anatolian coast. Reciprocally, the Turkish Government will forbid their military aircraft to fly over the said islands.
• The Greek military forces in the said islands will be limited to the normal contingent called up for military service, which can be trained on the spot, as well as to a force of gendarmerie and police in proportion to the force of gendarmerie and police existing in the whole of the Greek territory”.
The Status of the Islands of the South-Eastern Aegean (the Dodecanese)
The Dodecanese islands were ceded to Greece in full sovereignty by the Paris Peace Treaty between Italy and the Allies in April 1947. The provisions of this Treaty provided for the demilitarization of these islands: “The above islands shall be demilitarized and shall remain so”. There is a National Guard presence on the Dodecanese islands, which has been declared in accordance with CFE provisions.
With regard to Turkish claims on the demilitarization of the Dodecanese islands, it should be noted that:
• Turkey is not a signatory state to this Treaty, which therefore constitutes a "res inter alios acta" for Turkey; i.e., an issue pertaining to others. According to Article 34 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, a treaty does not create obligations or rights for third countries.
• The demilitarized status of the Dodecanese islands was imposed after the decisive intervention of the Soviet Union and echoes Moscow’s political intentions at that point in time. It should, however, be noted that demilitarized status lost its raison d’être with the creation of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, as incompatible with countries’ participation in military alliances. Against this backdrop, demilitarized status ceased to apply to the Italian islands of Pantelaria, Lampedusa, Lampione and Linosa, as well as to West Germany on the one hand and Bulgaria, Romania, East Germany, Hungary and Finland on the other.
It should be stressed that Greece, just like any other country in the world, has never ceded its natural right of defense in the event of a threat to its islands or any other part of its territory, especially since there has been sufficient proof over the past decades that Turkey is acting in an inconsistent manner and in violation of the United Nations Charter.
