And to finish with the array of the turkish disputes:

From the Turkish ministry of foreign affairs:

The Demilitarized Status of the Eastern Aegean Islands

One of the basic elements of the political balance established by the 1923 Lausanne Peace Treaty in the Aegean is the status of the Eastern Aegean islands.

Due to the security requirements of Turkey, the demilitarized status of the Eastern Aegean islands has been an essential element of the Aegean status quo ever since they were placed under Greek sovereignty.

The Athens Decision of l9l4 by the Six Powers stipulated a demilitarized status for the islands then being turned over to Greece.
Articles l2 and Article l3 of the l923 Lausanne Peace Treaty and Article 4 of its annexed Convention confirmed this status. The Convention specifically provided that the islands of Lemnos and Samothrace, situated at the entrance of the Çanakkale Straits (Dardanelles), be demilitarized on an even stricter basis, thus emphasizing their vital importance for the security of the Straits.
The l936 Montreux Convention, which established the regime of the Turkish Straits, did not bring any change to the status of the islands.
The l947 Treaty of Paris turned over the islands, commonly referred to as the “Dodecanese”, to Greece. This Treaty also sought to reconcile Greek sovereignty over these islands with the security of Turkey by stipulating in Article l4 that “these islands shall be and shall remain demilitarized”.
However, Greece has been violating the demilitarized status of the islands in contravention of her contractual obligations since the 1960’s and has admitted a military presence on some of these Islands since the 1970’s.

Turkey formally raised the issue of the illegal military activities on the islands as early as mid- 60’s and protested these violations of Greek obligation to keep the islands demilitarized.

Contrary to the status of Eastern Aegean islands, the Turkish territories including the Aegean Region is not under such a demilitarized status.

The Aegean army is basically a training army. This army has been established in Turkey on legal ground and has a defencive character.

On the other hand, the recent deployment of EXOCET guided missile batteries which are offensive weapons on islands under demilitarized status is a further example of blatant violation of existing international agreements.

As usually,based on propaganda and deception.Let’s see the main points clearly:

The Athens Decision of l9l4 by the Six Powers stipulated a demilitarized status for the islands then being turned over to Greece.
Articles l2 and Article l3 of the l923 Lausanne Peace Treaty and Article 4 of its annexed Convention confirmed this status.

This the first LIE.From Lausanne Treaty,art. 12 and 13:

ARTICLE 12.

The decision taken on the 13th February, 1914, by the Conference of London, in virtue of Articles 5 of the Treaty of London of the 17th-30th May, 1913, and 15 of the Treaty of Athens of the 1st-14th November, 1913, which decision was communicated to the Greek Government on the 13th February, 1914, regarding the sovereignty of Greece over the islands of the Eastern Mediterranean, other than the islands of Imbros, Tenedos and Rabbit Islands, particularly the islands of Lemnos, Samothrace, Mytilene, Chios, Samos and Nikaria, is confirmed, subject to the provisions of the present Treaty respecting the islands placed under the sovereigntyof Italy which form the subject of Article 15.

Except where a provision to the contrary is contained in the present Treaty, the islands situated at less than three miles from the Asiatic coast remain under Turkish sovereignty.

ARTICLE 13.

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:

(I) No naval base and no fortification will be established in the said islands.

(2) 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.

(3) 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.
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1918p/lausanne.html

The Treaty talks of CERTAIN islands,named one by one (but Turkey prefers to put them all together) and doesn’t speak of “demilitarization” as Turkey says,but Greece will maintain a normal military force that can be trainned locally and won’t do naval base or fortification.For that reason,Greece has neither naval bases nor military airports in said islands.

BTW,Turkey has violated the same articles since her airplanes have overflown the greek islands.

Next batch of islands mentioned by Turkey.Their status was initially defined in the the Convention of the Regime of the Straits of 1923 :

ARTICLE 4.

The zones and islands indicated below shall be demilitarised:

(1) Both shores of the Straits of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus over the extent of the zones delimited below:

Dardanelles:

On the north-west, the Gallipoli Peninsula and the area south-east of a line traced from a point on the Gulf of Xeros 4 kilometres north-east of Bakla-Burnu, reaching the Sea of Marmora at Kumbaghi and passing south of Kavak (this village excluded);

On the south-east, the area included between the coast and a line 20 kilometres from the coast, starting from Cape Eski-Stamboul opposite Tenedos and reaching the Sea of Marmora at a point on the coast immediately north of Karabigha.

Bosphorus (without prejudice to the special provisions relating to Constantinople contained in Article 8):

On the east, the area extending up to a line 15 kilometres from the eastern shore of the Bosphorus;

On the west, the area up to a line 15 kilometres from the western shore of the Bosphorus.

(2) All the islands in the Sea of Marmora, with the exception of the island of Emir Ali Adasi.

(3) In the Ægean Sea, the islands of Samothrace, Lemnos, Imbros, Tenedos and Rabbit Islands.

http://www.hri.org/docs/straits/convention.html

So,BOTH Greece AND Turkey has demilitarised zones according to that.

BUT,The Treaty of the Straits was substituted in 1936:

Convention regarding the Regime of the Straits, and Protocol

(Montreux, 20 July 1936)

“HAVE RESOLVED to replace by the present Convention the Convention signed at Lausanne on 24 July 1923, and have appointed as their Plenipotentiaries:”
http://bar.austlii.edu.au/au/other/dfat/treaties/1936/13.html

^In the above Treaty that is clearly stated that replaces the previous one,there is no mention anymore about demilitarization.Turkey re-militarised herself but claims that Greece should abide by the 1923 Convention!

In addition, to quote the greek ministry : We should also underline that the wish of Greece to militarise Lemnos and Samothrace was accepted by a letter dated 6 May, 1936, addressed to the Greek Prime Minister from the Turkish Ambassador to Athens, Roussen Esref, upon instructions from his Government (see Annex No. 1). The Turkish Government reiterated this stand when the then Turkish Foreign Minister, Rustu Aras, while addressing the Turkish National Assembly at the time of the ratification of the Montreux Convention, explicitly recognised the legal right of Greece to base troops on Lemnos and Samothrace, stating the following: “Provisions concerning the islands of Lemnos and Samothrace, which belong to our neighbouring and friendly country Greece and which were demilitarized in conformity with the convention of Lausanne of 1923 are also cancelled by the new Montreux Convention and we are very pleased for this” (Journal of the Proceedings of the Turkish National Assembly, Volume 12. July 31. 1936, p. 309 ) {see Annex No 2, the Turkish text}. Assurances of an equal value were given, during the same period, by the Turkish side to Interested Governments of Third Countries.

The l947 Treaty of Paris turned over the islands, commonly referred to as the “Dodecanese”, to Greece. This Treaty also sought to reconcile Greek sovereignty over these islands with the security of Turkey by stipulating in Article l4 that “these islands shall be and shall remain demilitarized”.

This is the only true part in the story.The Greek position is(directly from the greek ministry):

Three important factors should be kept in mind:

* The fact that Turkey is not a contracting party to this Treaty, which, therefore, constitutes a “res inter alios acta” for it (according to Article 34 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which states that “A Treaty does not create obligations or rights to third countries”).
* The fact that this demilitarization regime was imposed upon the rest of the signatories by the Soviet Union and reflects the political considerations of Moscow at the specific time, and
* The fact that what has been mentioned above, concerning the Greek right to defense, is also mutatis mutandis applicable here.

Finally, it should also be mentioned that the whole notion of demilitarization lost its ground after the creation of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, as it was incompatible with participation in military alliances. Thus, demilitarization ceased to apply on the Italian Islands Pantelaria, Lampedusa, Lampione and Linosa and in Western Germany on the one hand, as well as in Bulgaria, Romania, Eastern Germany, Hungary and Finland on the other. It is hard to believe that, at this late date of general detente, Turkey should invoke unilateral demilitarization within the NATO Alliance.

Last but not least, Greece, like any other country in the world, has never waived its natural right of self-defense in the event her islands or any other part of her territory are threatened, in compliance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter :

“Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual of collective self-defence… “

In this connection, it is also relevant to mention Article 103 of the U.N. Charter, according which:

“In the event of a conflict between the obligations of the Members of the United Nations under the present Charter and their obligations under any other international agreement, their obligations under the present Charter shall prevail .”
http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/

Thus, Greece would be failing in its obligations regarding the maintenance of international peace and security in the Eastern Mediterranean if it omitted to take some precautionary defensive measures on the islands, aimed exclusively at the protection of her security and her territorial integrity, while there is ample evidence that, during recent decades, Turkey has acted in a manner inconsistent with and in violation of the U.N. Charter:

* Turkey, in violation of the Treaty of Guarantee concerning Cyprus, to which Greece is a party, invaded the Island in 1974 and, despite the numerous resolutions of the U.N. Security Council and General Assembly, continues to maintain a large military force on the occupied territory, which constitutes a threat to international peace and security.
* Turkey has repeatedly violated the Greek air space, and specifically the air space of the Greek islands that Turkey is under contractual obligation to respect (para. 2 of Article 13 of the Lausanne Treaty).
* However, the most serious reason of all is that, during the three last decades, Turkey has embarked upon a huge concentration of troops, arms, equipment, helicopters and landing craft in areas and points on the coast of Asia Minor, situated opposite the Greek islands and directed against the Greek Islands, since there is no other possible target in the region.

———————————————–

So despite that there are 3 groups of islands under completely different Treaties ,Turkey speaks of “demilitarization”.Now add this to the other turkish disputes,the gray zones,the NOTAM 714 on the eastern half of Athens FIR,the SAR regions,the territorial waters and the turkish “Aegean Army” waiting in Izmir and draw your own conclusions of what are the real intentions of Turkey and of WHY Turkey is allergic to UNCLOS and Hague Tribunals.Because her legal arguments in almost everything are a JOKE.They want the eastern half of the Aegean and they EVEN WANT THE ISLANDS DEMILITARIZED BEFORE INVADING! 😮 Why have casualties when you can dispute even the presence of defending troops of the adversary??? :rolleyes:

Regards
Hyperion.

Ok, you´re right I should have said cynical :rolleyes: However I´m pretty sure that Dassault would be as happy as EADS to sell aircraft to Turkey as well. I´m not not sure if SAAB is allowed to sell aircraft to Turkey though?

BTW, this moral aspect of the military aircraft industry is hardly ever discussed on this forum I´m afraid!

I am not sure about SAAB,i think they had a rift with Turkey over the Kurds,but i have the feeling that Turkey won’t be buying any French weapon any time soon.Read this:

http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-05-18-voa54.cfm

Turkey threatened with total boycott of french products and bids in contracts.

This isn’t the first clash between France and Turkey over the Armenians.And i think it has something to do with the fact that Turks have very few french weapons (the Cougar and later cancelled the Eryx,because according to Turkey proved to be unsatisfactory).On the contrary Greece in the past has bought Mirage F1,Mirage 2000,Mirage2000-5 Mk2,Exocet (MM and AM),VBL Panhard,AMX-30 and is part of the Neuron project.

Moral aspect of weapons sales?What’s that? 😀

as far as I’m concerrned, your posts are great! I just was amazed from the swiftness and the size of your reply 😀

Thank you for your kindness.Thanks to some studies i ‘ve made,writing in english isn’t much different than writing in greek as far as speed is concerned.

I think the most obvius answer is that the far better standard of living in Greece (comparing with Turkey…) makes Greeks more against a War than the turkish side, witch is going destroy completely both economies. Especialy the political situation in Turkey, where the armed forces try to maintain their political power and avoid the democratization of the country at any cost, is the main reason of such crisis and such unreasonable attitude.

Correct.After many sacrifices Greece has managed to have a good economy,a war would be a disaster.In addition,Greece,for political reasons in the international arena,doesn’t want to be the first one to pull the trigger,because Turkey will use that as pretext for total war and accuse Greece of starting it.Effectively,the aggressor will wear a sheep’s skin and appear as the victim of greek aggression.Just read the press abroads and they all keep equal distance,putting both sides in the same bag : “They have many disputes,the 2 archrivals” etc.I am sorry,but there isn’t worse common saying that “the truth lies in the middle”.If i put a gun on your head,the truth isn’t in the middle.It can be in the middle,in one end or closer to one end that to the other.

The eastern islands have some SHORADs on ,which caused the protest of Turkey.The problem isn’t solved with Meteor or any other weapon unless you decide to use it.Otherwise,we buy Meteor,they buy Meteor and the thing goes on forever.Buying weapons serves only as deterrent and is what we ‘ve been doing since 1974,but how long will this go on?

Our current goverment was foolishly counting a lot in the personal relations of the 2 PMs.And so didn’t pursue as much as should the Hague solution,because of fear that would put the Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan under domestic accuse from the Kemalists and that would worsen things.So our goverment went on with the idea “a democratic Turkey,that follows the EU standards will lower aggressive attitude and lead to peaceful solution”.So as our ex President of the Reppublic said,we have gone to 33 rounds of bilateral talks with no solution.He reminded our gov,that things seems desperate,this policy has bankrupt,Turkey may pass EU regulations,but at heart remains the same.So we should stop hoping in personal relations and democratization miracles and make again as 1st priority the solution in Hague and the UNCLOS Tribunal.It seems that some in the goverment took the message.We will see.

The problem is that from one side,Greece doesn’t war to start the war.On the other side,pubblic opinion is fed up with this situation.In the EU ,if Greece puts veto,will cause the wrath of EU partners that want Turkey in the union and of USA plus Turkey,so it is also a path that our goverment is hesitant to take.There is also the theory,that Turkey would rather go to war rather than accept to go to Hague or follow a hague’s ruling that wouldn’t satisfy 100% of the turkish positions.Then in Greece in these days there is a debate of what is the limit of what can be accepted as dispute in Hague.For example our ex President of Reppublic said that we should try to manage Turkey to go with us to Hague for everything except the gray zones,because it is absurd to accept as dispute even that,since violates already Lausanne Treaty and because we can’t risk putting greek soil on bargain from the moment that Greece doesn’t claim anything on the right of the borders and Turkey disputes everything on the left side of the borders.Turkey acts like lawyers in divorce cases which ask for say 20.000 ,so that the judge will grant him 2000.And we can’t do that with greek soil ,because what can then stop Turkey from presenting new claims on greek soil (in Thrace for example)?Already they claim islands near Crete and the middle of the Aegean,it’s not possible to bargain our own islands.Such an eventuality ,would have much political cost for our goverment,but what would stop Turkey from bringing those to Hague too?It’s like having a neighbour saying “Your windows are mine,oh,half your garden is also mine,oh,your dog is also mine,oh you can’t build the fence too high cause you cut my view of the scenery,oh,your car is mine,the trees right next to our fence should be mine,because the roots go also under my land”.A mentally health man wouldn’t accept all that as legal claims.

Anyway,the analysts say that the first to be settled are territorial waters.These will fix also airspace boundaries.Once the waters are settled,the continental shelf can be delimited and eventually the FIR dispute,although some aren’t sure if this can fall under the juristiction of the Court.

Then remain 2 things,that Turkey wants much,the demilitarization of the eastern Aegean islands and the gray zones.

One can only guess what will happen,personally i hope we choose one solution,because i am sick of this situation.Democracy miracles don’t happen with appeasement policy and with exchange of carpets.Turkey respects only military power,nothing else.Either we will solve this with war or with UNCLOS+Den Haag Tribunals.There is no other way and i hope our goverment won’t lose further time with “friendship” and treat Turkey a bit like the Cypriot President does “I give you this,but i expect something back”.I am tired of hearing this “Greece supports the EU and democratization path of Turkey”.This can’t be unconditional.Better suffer retaliation in other sectors of our interests in EU and in US relations than keep throwing buckets of money out of the windows for another 30 years.Or decide that we ‘ll pull the trigger the next time and finish it there.I remember an episode where Turkish F-16s overflew the Rhodes civillian airport.We should have pulled the trigger,gather up the journalists ,put them on a plane,bring them to Rhodes and show them the debris.I would be curious to hear the turkish explanation.That they were on routine flight in “international airspace”?And the wind took the debris and made it fall on land? Petros’ stats show that they fly also over land.And it is natural.They can’t zig zag all the time to avoid all the small greek islands.They would burn double the amount of fuel for each flight.

Apparently,after the daily “routine” with the turkish flights,now we will have daily harassments of fishermen at Imia…

New harassment of 2 greek fisherboats at Imia.The turkish vessel remained in turkish waters though this time.In the area went one greek Coast Guard vessel and one “gunboat” (canonioforos) of the greek navy.

http://www.skairadio.gr/4dcgi/_w_articles_skaigreece_121_31/05/2006_155122

I think it is obvious that our “friendship” policy has totaly sunk.We gave away our vetos and from Turkey the only gesture was having our PM as best man in the Turkish PM’s son wedding and a (silk?) carpet that the Turkish PM gave to ours.Great!

And this is the Turkish self-proclaimed Search And Rescue Region :rolleyes:

The REAL regions,as recognised by the International Maritime Organization,are these :

http://www.imo.org/includes/blastDataOnly.asp/data_id%3D9046/1.pdf

You can put the coordinates in google earth.The Greek SAR region covers the greek FIR.But not according to Turkey!

This is all part of one coherent turkish plan.They want the eastern half of the Aegean.They do not think they are ready yet for military take over of the islands(or they would have proceeded in 1996.After all,in Cyprus,by admition of their own general,it was the airforce that saved the invasion the first days,the beachhead was disastrous,so 7 to 1 against Greece which is better armed isn’t yet enough),so they maintain the disputes ,so that if one day they think that time has come for military intervention,nobody will be struck by surprise and everyone will be accustomed to the usual “Greeks claim this,Turks claim that,only God knows who’s right”.

I hear this argument again and again about the Hague court etc.
Just few questions – that nobody took care to answer

1. Supposing that both countries go to court which makes a verdict. How is the court going to enforce it?By Ms Del Ponte? Or by NATO, US, EU, UN, or whatever? Are you n$$$ all of you????

According to your logic,Treaties,Arbitration Courts,UN,wouldn’t exist,since nobody ensures that one side won’t violate them…The 2 countries must first recognise as compulsory the juristiction of the Court.If one of the 2 violates the ruling,patience,it’s a risk that one must take,but at least,it won’t be anymore the usual “Greeks claim this while Turks claim that”.It will be “This part violated the hague’s ruling”.The International Court of Justice is an organ of the UN.Violating the ruling equals violating International Law.This makes a big difference in international politics.If you think it doesn’t think of what happened to occupied Cyprus that is still not recognised as State because of the UN resolutions.I guess we can even go to war,but at least we won’t have to wait for CNN to tell who is rigth and who is wrong.Now,that wouldn’t be that bad,would it?

2. What if few years later a new debate for smth different starts. What are you people going to do? Go again to the court?

Yes,you can go again to Court or you can go to war or can start a new cold war.It’s all the same options all over again.

3. What if international treaties and law change in due time that might affect the dicision for or against one part. The other part will ask the case to be considered again. Then what are you going to do?

Excuse me,you call the others n$$$ ,but what kind of reasoning is this???A Court judges according to the current laws.It can’t predict the future.Anyway,to remove your curiocity:

Article 60

The judgment is final and without appeal. In the event of dispute as to the meaning or scope of the judgment, the Court shall construe it upon the request of any party.
Article 61

1. An application for revision of a judgment may be made only when it is based upon the discovery of some fact of such a nature as to be a decisive factor, which fact was, when the judgment was given, unknown to the Court and also to the party claiming revision, always provided that such ignorance was not due to negligence.

2. The proceedings for revision shall be opened by a judgment of the Court expressly recording the existence of the new fact, recognizing that it has such a character as to lay the case open to revision, and declaring the application admissible on this ground.

3. The Court may require previous compliance with the terms of the judgment before it admits proceedings in revision.

4. The application for revision must be made at latest within six months of the discovery of the new fact.

5. No application for revision may be made after the lapse of ten years from the date of the judgment.
http://www.icj-cij.org/icjwww/ibasicdocuments/ibasictext/ibasicstatute.htm

4. What if both countries that go to the court deny to withdraw the reasons for “casus belli”. That means that both countries have their limits and might declare that they won’t accept a decision against their interests. Then what do you think Ms Del Ponte will do? Send two helis to Athens and Ankara to kidnap the prime ministers?

First,the casus belli is unilateral (from Turkey only).Recognising the Court’s juristiction is there exactly so to avoid such things.If they don’t apply the Court’s decisions,then one part will have violated an international Court’s ruling and politically it will be strong weapon for the other side.
BTW,you are confusing things,Ms Del Ponte has nothing to do with this Court.Ms Del Ponte is in the war crimes tribunal,not the International Court of Justice.

I think realpolitik says for a case like this that the interest for both sides is nothing to change. Turkey will continue send their aircraft over Again because it has the right to do so and Greece will interept them because Greece also has the right to do so. If it was smth different from that a solution should had been found. But it hadn’t. So this situation is the interest of both sides.

Now there’s an interesting explanation.Both have interest for continuing this cold war.Right.And both have the right to do so.I see. 😮

Update : the 3 were set free.The film showed photos of both the city of Hania and military installations.They said they were tourists and the prosecutor ordered their release ,due to insufficient evidence.