Talk:Aegean dispute

Continental Shelf

Hello, I think we might improve the wording at the section 1.3 Continental Shelf. It currently reads:

"In the context of the Aegean dispute, the term continental shelf refers to a littoral state's exclusive right to economic exploitation of resources on and under the sea-bed (...). The width of the continental shelf is commonly defined for purposes of international law as not exceeding 200 nautical miles. (...) The concept of the continental shelf is closely connected to that of an exclusive economic zone, which refers to a littoral state's control over fishery and similar rights. Both concepts were developed in international law from the middle of the 20th century and were codified in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1982."

I've done quite some reading of the UNCLOS and I think this is not the best way of expressing it. UNCLOS defines the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), with exclusive rights over fishery, drilling and so on, as not exceeding 200 nautical miles, unless there is an continental shelf which stretches further. It does not define what a continental shelf is - this is a geological feature (like river, coast, island, mountain), not a legal concept. So in UNCLOS there is only one concept, which is the EEZ, which can vary if a continental shelf is present. (In the Mediterranean, there is mainly no shelf, according to geologists, and as the shelf is only important to extend the EEZ further than 200 miles, which is anyhow impossible in the Mediterranean without getting into the EEZ of the country on the opposing shore, it is completely irrelevant in this geographical area). BUT in the Aegean dispute, in fact all involved parties (also the Greek government) use the expression "continental shelf" as a synonym or shorthand for "exclusive economic zone". So in this context, both terms mean the same thing. What we should not do is a) suggest that this is the correct use of the word as backed by UNCLOS, which it is not, and b) suggest there are different definitions for shelf and EEZ, when politicians us them (mistakenly) as synonyms. Any thoughts or perhaps sources to correct my opinion? Ilyacadiz (talk) 15:00, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for this. I'm going to change this in the Greece–Turkey relations page Elias (talk) 05:18, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Non-neutral view and falsification issues.

1) The Greece - Egypt agreement.

The statement below in bold is a manipulation of the facts or falsification of the conditions in this agreement.

"Several days later, on 6 August, the foreign ministers of Egypt and Greece, Sameh Shoukry and Nikos Dendias respectively, signed a maritime agreement partially demarcating the EEZs between the two countries, in line with the UNCLOS which recognizes the right of the islands to their continental shelf and EEZ"

In fact, Kastellorizo's EEZ and partially Rhodes's and even Crete's EEZ were not included in this agreement, their EEZ was not considered and was accepted as such by Greece authorities.

Source: https://slpress.gr/english-edition/greece-ceded-sovereign-rights-to-egypt-on-the-altar-of-the-turkish-libyan-memorandum

This paragraph should be corrected to be in line with the actual data.

2) National airspace

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) of 1948, as containing a binding definition that both zones must coincide. So, by international law, the ICAO of 1948 updated their own earlier version of 1931, which was accepted by all countries including Greece and Turkey.

The following recent update maden by US Dept should be included in the paragraph.

As Greece's extended airspace claim is not in line with international law, US State Dept says:

“Under international law, a country’s airspace coincides with its territorial sea. The U.S. thus recognizes airspace up to 6 nautical miles consistent with the territorial sea. Greece and the U.S. do not share a view on the extent of Greece’s airspace,” the report said.

Source: https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/diplomacy/greeces-extended-airspace-claim-not-in-line-with-international-law-us-state-dept-says

Claim airspace beyond actual borders is completely unique and illegal in international law. Unfortunately, the authors did not mention it in such an actual way, they falsified facts and hid worldwide reactions to illegal claims by Greece.

p.s. in a nutshell article contains dozens of the political influences relying only on the Greece Press, Authorities, supporting Greece nationalism. The article is tendentious, scientifically speaking, it contains dozens of recurring sources that are based on one view and provide a non-neutral view on the topic (WP:BIASED). Sources should be balanced, and views from each side should be provided based on the principle of equality and neutrality.

I'm expecting that community will pay attention on these points. WP:CONSENSUS Ahiskali-turk (talk) 23:27, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Welcome. Thank you for using the talk page. Now, to your points.

Point 1: In the Preamble of the official document of the Partial Egypt-Greece maritime deal, there is a total of five articles, it is explicitly stated in them that the two states, the Hellenic Republic and the Arab Republic of Egypt, fully recognize the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Furthermore, Article 1 specifically, clearly states that the two sides have agreed on a partial maritime demarcation line (partial, means the agreement is not complete; other areas in the sea are left for a later time, circumstances permitting it).

The fact that the island of Kastellorizo was not included in the agreement, may not be perceived as the countries not recognizing the EEZ of areas not included in the deal. Partial maritime demarcation means that only some areas have been agreed for now: Those of Crete and Carpathos. Any future expansions of the partial maritime demarcation may complete provided that there is political will from all the countries in the region: Cyprus, Egypt, Greece and Turkey for beginning talks about the parts left off the agreement, specifically the area south of Kastellorizo, between the maritime boundary between Egypt and Greece and the maritime boundary between Egypt and Cyprus. That would require that all 4 countries are ready to go to talks about it. However, Turkey which does not recognize the UNCLOS, is not ready to do that yet, therefore, the demarcation affecting the area south and east of Kastellorizo is left for a later time once all parties are ready to agree about these remaining areas.

Foreign and Greek politicians suggested that the Kastellorizo's EEZ is taken jointly, by both Turkey and Greece, to the International Court of Justice, an suggestion which Greece sees positively, but Turkey does not, at least not without some conditions. Turkey conditions this to Greece's sovereignty (Greece to recognize the ICoJ's jurisdiction on Greek sovereign affairs, and thus, decide whether Greece may possess or not, the Greek islands Turkey is disputing). Greece refuses this demand, making it unlikely that Kastellorizo's EEZ case will be resolved at ICoJ level.

Edit: oh and forgot to address your statement, that "In fact, Kastellorizo's EEZ and partially Rhodes's and even Crete's EEZ were not included in this agreement, their EEZ was not considered and was accepted as such by Greece authorities. is not true and not even present in the SLPress source you have cited. The SLPress author writes (and please read him carefully): "The agreement recognizes with a Greek signature that Crete has a reduced EEZ influence. As it turns out, the distribution of the intermediate sea area between Greece and Egypt was not based on the principle of the equidistant middle line. On the contrary, it was done in a way that it leans against the interests of Greece, which results in a 56% – 44% in favor of Egypt. This is a very important Greek concession, because it concerns not only the acceptance of a smaller EEZ than is legally Greek, but also the recognition that an island the size of Crete can have a reduced influence on the EEZ.". So, where did you get these conclusions that the author states Crete, Carpathos and Rhodes do not have any EEZ? The author in SLPress is not stating anything like that about the agreement. Contrary, the author in this source is criticizing the Egypt-Greece agreement for the fact that is reducing their EEZ by 5% which IMO is totally different than your conclusions that no such EEZ is recognized in the agreements about the islands. Authors are free to express their criticism to agreements and there is nothing wrong with that. Heck, there was even an article criticizing the agreement between Italy and Greece for recognizing a reduction of EEZ for certain Greek islands at the Ionian Sea, as a tradeoff for expanded Greek EEZ towards Italy's Calabria. And that's absolutely normal. Not everyone is supposed to be happy or agree with the contents of agreements between the countries.

Point 2: The article's section titled "National Airspace", already states that Greece's claim is "unique" regarding its airspace: The delimitation of national airspace claimed by Greece is unique, as it does not coincide with the boundary of the territorial waters. Greece claims 10 nautical miles (19 km) of airspace, as opposed to currently 6 miles of territorial waters. The article also notes that Turkey had recognized the 10-mile airspace without any problems in the past: its 10-nautical-mile (19 km) claim predates the ICAO statute, having been fixed in 1931, and that it was acknowledged by all its neighbours, including Turkey, before and after 1948, hence constituting an established right. The article also makes sure to not neglect the fact that it is only after Cyprus's 1974 events that Turkey made a 180-turn and refused to accept it anymore even though it had accepted it for decades: Since 1974, Turkey has refused to acknowledge the validity of the outer 4-mile belt of airspace that extends beyond the Greek territorial waters.. It is not a secret that the Aegean dispute was "born" in 1974, and expanded over the years.

That a dispute being born later, despite prior recognition of these established rights, doesn't exactly cancel these rights simply like that, nor they become "illegal" under international law as Sabah reports. For example, Greece accepted the Hatay province (originally part of Syria) as being part of Turkey. Having Greece hypothetically declare a 180-turn on that now, and recognize it as part of Syria (which still claims it), doesn't automatically make Hatay be considered an illegal possession of Turkey per international law. Per international law, Hatay has already been established as a province of Turkey and none may change that anymore. Not even Syria. However, Sabah neglects informing you about the paradox of Turkey expecting from Syria to respect its established rights in Hatay but not do the same regarding Greece's established right to its 10-mile airspace which was established prior to ICAO and Turkey didn't object to it for about 40 years. I recommend the use of third-party sources regarding the Aegean dispute instead of resorting to newspapers suchas Daily Sabah because it was deemed at the WP:Reliable Sources Noticeboard as a source reporting false facts, thus, failing the WP:RS criteria. Anyways, if you check carefully the Aegean Dispute's history log, you will notice that it is the admins and editors who have worked on it so carefully and with great care. No wonder why, considering the article's topic which is politically sensitive, and the article's overall stability depends on the reliability of information and quality of sources.

So what you are arguing about the Aegean dispute being "a nutshell article contains dozens of the political influences relying only on the Greece Press" is just your unfortunate opinion which insults the admins and editors who worked hard all these years and were careful to use only sources that meet the Wikipedia's WP:RS criteria. Now, if you really believe that the Daily Sabah is the reliable source while Reuters (which you reverted me from adding to the article: [1]), is "politically influenced by Greek press", then you may bring your concerns to the RSN. But be prepared for a lot of embarassment. It will be very difficult to convince anyone that Daily Sabah is reliable while Reuters is not. Good day.

Edit 2: Pardon me for taking that long to provide the answer to your last points. Regarding the source falsification accusations you have made: I have repeatedly and thoroughly checked both the article Aegean dispute and the sources provided, at least twice so far. Despite this, I have not been able to verify your accusations of source falsification. The content in the article is in line with the sources. Per WP:NOTFALSE, there isn't anything that would constitute a source falsification.

Considering that you are the only person to make such source falsifications accusations here, while at same time you have attempted falsifying the source from SLPress (where you have falsely claimed this source saying something it didn't), makes me believe that, you 1) either have absolutely no idea what a source falsification is, or 2) don't know how to properly read and understand the sources. Please familiarize yourself with WP:VERIFIABILITY because in Wikipedia, source falsification is considered as highly disruptive, as do are the baseless accusations and attempts at discrediting the hard work of admins and users on the article. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 15:36, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

What's up with all the air quotes?

Seriously, is this kind of tone acceptable now?

What's next, wRiTiNg aRtICLeS lIkE tHiS uNdEr A pIc oF sPoNgE bOb? 195.33.34.82 (talk) 06:20, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Because it is such a contentious topic and both sides disagree on every point so theyre adding the air quotes as if to show that it may as well not be real.

E.g. With the grey zones, those dont legally exist, so when there is mention of it, there must be air quotes. BackwardsJetwash (talk) 10:02, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Article is not written in neutral language

It is extremely editorialized, there is a lot of soapboxing. I tried to fix few stuff here and there but the entire article is written in biased language. 88.230.168.221 (talk) 00:21, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

WP:RS reporting on domestic affairs, reflecting on the 2020s dynamics for the dispute

The Scandinavia-based Nordic Research Monitoring Network running by Turkish journalists who live in self-exile in Northern Europe who monitor domestic politics in the Republic of Turkey, reports of a motion raised by the Turkish opposition and brought up to the Grand National Assembly, and which claims that Greece occupies Turkish islands on the Aegean Sea, was down-voted by the Government and its parliamentary allies. A MP of the ruling party, acknowledges that although the motion claims about Greek occupation is not true, there still are disagreements between the two countries over a number of issues. The article reporting on these domestic developments, also mentions on the improving relations between the two countries in conjunction with the relations with the West.

Nordic Monitor: Turkish opposition claims Greece is taking advantage of tensions between government and West

I an unsure if and how this WP:RS may be of any use to the article which would benefit from even a brief mention of the domestic affairs as of the 2020s regarding the Aegean dispute which are key and whose aspects undeniably influence the prospects for escalating or resolving the dispute. If one follows the dispute closely, from the RS is understood that the domestic affairs nowadays (at least post-2013) are noticeably different to how things used to be in the past decades and are paramount to the dispute's escalation. - ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 16:49, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't believe Nordic Monitor is generally a WP:RS (we've discussed this before) – it's essentially a one-person, single-purpose propaganda website with no signs of editorial oversight or fact checking. In this particular case their report is arguably fairly harmless; there's not much for them to get wrong as long as they are merely summarizing what was publicly said in the parliament (only thing they get wrong is, the text they're printing as their source is not really the original resolution of that opposition group, but merely the procedural proposal to have that resolution discussed in the plenary, and the record of the debate that follows).

But be that as it may, the main point is, once more, that there's nothing new here. The opposition has been bringing these same claims to the table every now and then for years, and the discussion about them is a self-repeating ritual. The resolution seems to have been the typical laundry list of all the complaints against Greece that have been around for years, from the well-established claims of forbidden militarization and illegitimate EEZ boundaries, to the lunatic fringe ones about recently "occupied" islands (the parliamentary speaker unsurprisingly mixes these up in his presentation), and the the governmental response is the typical vagueness (denying the "occupation" claims, but as so often failing to raise the one crucial argument that could actually prove them wrong, i.e. the fact that you can't "occupy" something that you have possessed for decades before you allegedly did so).

I don't see much value in integrating any of this in the article. We need less "running commentary" on recent events, of the "he said this, then he said that" type, not more of it. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:43, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

You got valid points here, Future Perfect at Sunrise. (But frankly, I don't remember your opinion about Nordic Monitor not being reliable; seems I have forgotten this part from our past conversation. Sorry for making you repeat yourself on this. To me they appeared to be WP:RS because their reports and work didn't seem to be contradicted or challenged by any third party sources, and often their reports coincide with what is reported in Western sources, and/or, in some instances, pieces of their reports were adopted by the NY Times and Washington Post. Thats' why.) Good day. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 22:21, 12 November 2024 (UTC)