Turkiye is completely correct. The International Law of the Sea states that "Straight Baseline" can be drawn for states with a coastline only on the condition that the coastal topography complies with the principles of Article 7 of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Moreover, apart from the "Normal Baseline" and "Straight Baseline" drawings, as a special condition, UNCLOS article 47 includes the methods for determining the "Archipelago Baseline", but this special method includes the "Archipelago State" in UNCLOS article 46 (State of the Islands/Archipelago).
It is clear that Greece cannot benefit from the special provisions in Article 47 of the UNCLOS since it is not an Islands State or an Archipelago State. Because Greece is a mainland state, not a state like Indonesia that consists only of islands. Moreover, the faces of the Greek islands facing the Eastern Mediterranean have a total coastline of 167 kilometers and it is illegal to request a maritime jurisdiction against the Anatolian coast of 1870 kilometers. Also, islands less than 200 miles from the mainland do not produce an EEZ, in other words they are included in the EEZ area of the mainland, they cannot form an EEZ on it.
As a result, Greece's Crete and Rhodes islands in creating the boundary waters by drawing straight main line to the sea ignore the existence and determine this from even the Ministry of Education in terms of Turkey's maritime rights and interests as never acceptable, is contrary to international maritime law and a violation of law.
"Part V of the Convention (and more precisely Articles 55 to 75) provides for an "Exclusive Economic Zone” (EEZ) extending 200 nautical miles seaward from the coast. On 30 April 1982, a final vote took place in New York for the new UNCLOS. The results were 130 in favor, 4 against, and 17 abstentions. Turkey was upset with this convention and was one of four countries that voted against it. Greece, on the other hand, was almost completely satisfied with the benefits of the new constitution for the oceans and voted in favor of the convention.
Article 56 of UNCLOS provides the following rights of the coastal state in its economic zone:
- A. Exclusive sovereign rights for the purpose of exploring, conserving, and managing living and nonliving natural resources of the waters, the seabed, and subsoil
- B. Exclusive sovereign rights to control other activities such as the production of energy from the water, currents, and winds
- C. The right to control dumping of wastes
- D. The right to be informed of, participate in, and withhold consent for proposed marine scientific research projects
- E. The right to board, inspect, and arrest a merchant ship suspected of discharging pollutants in the economic zone.
Additionally, Articles 55 and 86 of the convention make it clear that the EEZ is neither a part of the territorial sea nor the high seas; it is a zone sui generis with a statute of its own.
The mistake of Turkey: Special Circumstances
At the end of 1986, Turkey unilaterally proclaimed a two hundred mile EEZ in the Black Sea. This move was in accordance with the provisions of UNCLOS, which Turkey has ironically never signed or ratified. Concurrently, Turkey reached an agreement on delimitation of the EEZ with the Soviet Union. This agreement used the equidistance method. There were no provisions of special circumstances or any reference to enclosed or semi-enclosed seas.
Thus Turkey, by accepting the concept of the EEZ as developed through UNCLOS, has weakened its position vis-à-vis Greece. This represents a fatal mistake for Turkey, a veritable Achilles heel in its dispute with Greece. Turkey’s attempt to implement a double standard position regarding the treatment of two semi-enclosed seas (Black and Aegean) is difficult to defend. It is simply an attempt to make a clear differentiation between delimitation of its maritime boundaries in the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea. A country cannot make a convincing argument by selectively choosing the parts of the convention it likes or dislikes.
For many years, Turkey has been adding issues at the negotiating table, such as gray zones, demilitarization of islands, and the breadth of the territorial waters.
With its EEZ, Greece would safeguard the economic unity of its continental and archipelagic space.
Greece has a total of 3,100 islands, of which 2,463 are in the Aegean. By comparison, Turkey has only three islands in the Aegean. A reason that most coastal states have unilaterally adopted the two hundred mile EEZ is to counteract overexploitation of their coastal fish stocks."
