The marine parks raised a storm

Intense waves the calm of the last months in Greek-Turkish relations was raised by the announcement of the Turkish Foreign Ministry, which once again raises the issue of questioning the Greek sovereignty of the Aegean islands. The occasion was the recent announcement by the Greek government to create, within 2024, two national marine parks, in the Ionian and Aegean, as a Greek commitment in view of the 9th International Conference “Our Ocean Conference”, which will be held next week in Athens.

In the neighboring country, and with the new round of Greek-Turkish consultations underway, the first to raise the issue was the vice-president of the main opposition party (CHP), Yanki Baggioglou, speaking of “attempts to prepare the ground by Greece for sovereignty claims in the Aegean ». Two 24 hours later came the provocative announcement of the Turkish Foreign Ministry, in which the ahistorical accusations about “gray zones” and “disputed islands” were repeated, through which he called on Greece not to use issues concerning “the status of certain islands, islets and islets of the whose sovereignty has not been transferred to Greece by international agreements”.

The Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, responding in a strict tone, accused the Turkish government of politicizing a purely environmental issue. “The global challenge of protecting the environment should raise awareness among governments and not be used to create impressions. The Greek government will continue to unwaveringly support the sovereignty and sovereign rights of the country in the context of foreign policy principles”, with the government representative pointing out that “Greece pursues a foreign policy without any inclination to retreat to our sovereign rights based on international law and the law of the sea”. Regarding the creation of the two marine parks, which was announced by Theodoros Skylakakis, explaining that their demarcation will result from a special scientific study and will be monitored with “drones, radar satellites and boats”, Pavlos Marinakis emphasized that “it has nothing to do with with some political movement in the political field”.

The Greek-Turkish dispute over marine parks, as well as Greek-Turkish relations in general and the Middle East, will be discussed at the National Foreign Policy Council meeting this morning ahead of the Greek Prime Minister’s visit to Ankara, around mid-May, for the summit meeting with the Turkish president. “There are cases where we will have retreats or related tensions, we are not ethereal” observed diplomatic sources in Athens shortly before the outbreak of the new Greek-Turkish tension, showing that the Greek side is prepared for all scenarios, without considering that through the said episode, the next steps are torpedoed, but also without being optimistic that the talks will always be clear-cut. However, as the Greek Foreign Ministry clarified, the Turkish delegation has been invited to the OOC-9 Conference and has responded positively, which until yesterday afternoon had not canceled its presence.

The opposition parties also expressed their reaction to the provocative announcement of the Turkish Foreign Ministry. SYRIZA, PASOK and KKE talked about the need to put a “brake on Turkish provocation”, for a direct violation of the international law of the sea and international conventions, as well as for unacceptable Turkish claims about “the existence of geographical formations with undefined sovereignty in the Aegean”.

From the 9th Delphi Economic Forum, on the occasion of the storm that arose over the marine parks, the Minister of National Defense Nikos Dendias emphasized yesterday that “Greece must react vertically and absolutely to any Turkish position that violates international law but avoid the tensions”, while Evangelos Venizelos underlined that we all “must contribute to the continuation of the calm of the last period without devaluing the national positions”.