Ankara insists with anti-Navtex on the unacceptable claim of demilitarization of islands
OF MANOS CHARALAMPAKI – SOURCE: THE NEWS – [Μετατροπή σε κείμενο: ]
The unacceptable claim of the demilitarization of the Greek islands of the Eastern Aegean is raised again by Ankara – and indeed officially – with an anti-Navtex issued in response to Greek naval announcements. Essentially, Turkey is not only seeking to find the islands without defensive armor, but is going a step further, indirectly but clearly asking for the military exercises in the Aegean to stop as well.
It is characteristic that just a few days ago Turkey issued two anti-Navtex with which it protests against the issuance of two Greek naval announcements concerning military exercises of the Armed Forces in the wider area of Agios Efstratios and in the Carpathian Sea, southeast of Astypalaia. Of course, Ankara is no longer limited to protest. It claims that Greece with these exercises, in the first case “violates the demilitarized status of Agios Eustratios according to the Treaty of Lausanne” and in the second “the demilitarized status of the islands of Tilos and Halki according to the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947”. The aim of the Turkish leadership is, on the one hand, to “block” or at least limit the Greek exercises in this region of the Aegean, and on the other hand, to formalize its claim for the demilitarization of the Eastern Aegean islands.
It is noted that the one exercise for which Navtex had been issued by the Hellenic Hydrographic Service of the Navy was around the area of Agios Efstratios. It was military high schools with fire. The second exercise, aeronautical, but without fire, was scheduled to take place yesterday in the Carpathian Sea.
Ankara’s demand for the demilitarization of the Eastern Aegean islands is certainly not current. For many years, it has been on the list of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs with its claims against Greece. And from time to time the Turkish officials also bring it back. However, in the last two years, Turkey had begun to systematically upgrade and restore this claim, of course interpreting the Lausanne and Paris conditions as they… convenient. This year, however, this “outrageous and ridiculous” demand for the demilitarization of the Greek islands – as Defense Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos recently described it – went beyond all limits. And this is because the Turks reached the point of linking the supposed demilitarization of the Greek islands with their sovereignty. In an extreme expression of revisionism in the year 2022, the Turks claim that the Eastern Aegean islands that have an army are in danger of losing their sovereignty. Essentially, Turkey is threatening Greece that if it does not withdraw its army from the islands, then it has the right to initiate procedures to dispute their sovereignty by various means.
Of course, all these Turkish demands outside the limits and framework of International Law have been rejected by the Greek government, while they were also answered to the UN with a similar Greek letter.
In addition, both the US and other powers such as Great Britain have given resounding answers to Ankara clarifying that the sovereignty of the Aegean islands is not disputed.
However, Ankara’s attempt to limit the activity of the Armed Forces in the Eastern Aegean and on the islands falls on deaf ears. The military exercises of the Armed Forces in or around the Greek islands are carried out as normal without taking into account the continuous Turkish anti-Navtex. Especially in times when Turkish provocation escalates, as is happening now, more and more upgraded exercises are conducted, in order to increase the operational readiness and capacity of the Greek Armed Forces. And whenever deemed necessary, for symbolic and substantive reasons, the presence of the military leadership is felt on the Greek islands. This is happening once again today with the tour carried out in Chios, Oinousses, Psara and Panagia by the Chief of the GETHA, General Konstantinos Floros.
