Talk:Imia/Archive 1

Archive 1

Why redirect from Imia islands?

Sorry I (re-)instated that redirect before I noticed that it had been questioned and unmade before. I should have opened a discussion here before I did that.

The reasons I prefer the redirect are:

1. The Imia islands article essentially just duplicated information that was also contained here.
2. Having one article using only the Greek name, and other independent articles using both names side by side is misleading.
3. As long as the international dispute continues to be unsolved, use of the double name seems preferable from a NPOV perspective.

We can still talk about whether it's preferable to have two separate articles, one just for the geographical information, and another for the political dispute. But both Imia-Kardak crisis and Imia islands previously were trying to do both things at once. (E.g., the story about the American map was used in both, etc.) Lukas 14:58, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

That new Imia/Kardak article is satisfying. Astavrou 15:31, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

"adjacent" vs. "dependent"

I looked up http://www.hri.org/mod/Imia/imia.htm where the Lausanne treaty is cited. There it says that the wording of article 14 of the Paris treaty is: "Italy hereby cedes to Greece in full sovereignty the Dodecanese Islands indicated hereafter, namely Stampalia (Astropalia), Rhodes (Rhodos), ... , and Castellorizo, as well as the adjacent islets." (my bold print). "Adjacent" is not necessarily the same as "dependent on", and as the whole conflict is more or less about the interpretation of treaties, protocols, and their wording, one should be as precise as possible when quoting. So could one check the quotes which one is accurate? In the result the difference may not be that big but the meaning of "adjacent" clearly differs from the meaning of "dependent on". --Proofreader 17:56, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

• Lausanne 1923 (Turkey to Italy) says "dependent", Paris 1947 (Italy to Greece) says "adjacent", in what is otherwise almost identically worded. We can safely assume that the authors in 1947 intended both to mean the same - it was certainly not their intention that some "dependent-but-not-adjacent" spot should remain as an exclave with Italy, or that Italy should be entitled to some "adjacent-but-not-dependent" spot that hadn't previously been transferred from Turkey to Italy in the first place. The territories intended to be transferred in both cases were obviously identical. Lukas ^(T.|@) 19:36, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Rewrite, December 2005

This article needs a major overhaul, on criteria of: NPOV, factual correctness, scope, and technicalities (links, redirects, naming etc.) I've put up an Underconstruction sign and started doing a few things. Lukas 09:43, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I've now finished a first stab that will need to be fleshed out with a few references. BTW, I Letus 19:44, 24 October 2006 (UTC)noticed that some folks in the past have been changing the names in the text from "Kardak" to "Imia" to "Imia/Kardak" and back again. Please, folks, don't edit-war about this. I have now changed consistently to "Imia/Kardak", and, given the undoubtedly contentious signal that either name implies, I would very strongly recommend to leave it like that, as it seems the only thing consistent with WP:NPOV. Please. :-) Lukas 01:05, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

HMS Childers Cartographic Survey 1947

I remember that in 2003 I read a very interesting letter to the editor of an American-Greek newspaper about a 1947 British Cartographic Survey in the region. [2]

According to the account of this British officer it is possible that the islets in question were wrongfully charted as belonging to Turkey by his predecessor. That would explain some inconsistencies, especially in several British Hydrographic Office maps. I could well be the Turks came to believe the islet to be theirs because of the described events during WW2. That would explain a lot of things.

As far as I know this information has not yet reached the public domain. Any opinions on that?

Letus 19:44, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Hey, wow, another highly interesting tidbit! I think since it has been published in a reputable newspaper, and be it only as a "letter to the editor", it would qualify as "verifiable". We could quote it, of course only as a suggestion made by one observer etc. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:35, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi Future. Yes, thanks. The funny thing about the story is that it is never mentioned. I definitely think we should quote it. I think it could maybe fit into the section Cartographic Evidence, but I am not sure. What is your opinion? That would be my first ever contribution to an article. I am so excited... Letus 23:11, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Be bold and go ahead! :-) That section could do with a bit of an overhaul anyway. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:15, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay <:-) I boldly quoted the account and made some minor changes to the last sentence of the section. If somebody has more information or other ideas I would like to discuss them. Letus 13:20, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Category wars

Guys, this article is now almost almost exactly a year old and is a rare example of a political dispute article that has so far lived without revert wars. Let's keep it like that. For your reference: Wikipedia:Categories states: "be careful of NPOV when creating or filling categories. Unless it is self-evident and uncontroversial that something belongs in a category, it should not be put into a category." - I would have personally preferred a more relaxed approach (in dubio pro cat), though. - Work it out. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:51, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

The recent state of the article is fine. There are appropriate links in the article in any case.. Baristarim 10:03, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I have removed the "Category:Aegean dispute grey zones" category accordingly. As stated clearly in the second paragraph: "These islands, some of them inhabited, are regarded as indisputably Greek by Greece but as grey zones of undetermined sovereignty by Turkey." Removing Category:The Dodecanese while allowing the Turkish POV is simply unacceptable. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 10:11, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Hey, will I really have to ask for page protection here? How pathetic. Use some restraint, folks. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:25, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, when I made Category:Aegean dispute grey zones, I was not espousing any pro-Turkish POV. (In fact, personally, I think most of the Greek-Turkish relations issues are pretty stupid.) However, we do have a category, Category:Disputed territories, that includes Category:Aegean dispute grey zones. By the category's nature, all territories therein are disputed by sovereign entities, and are included in the category and its subcategory precisely because their sovereign status is disputed. Therefore, if no items should be put into categories because they are disputed, then not only should Category:Aegean dispute grey zones be removed, but also Category:Disputed territories. But as Category:Disputed territories is healthy and well-maintained, it seems to have survived long-term tests of encyclopedicity. I'm going to restore Category:Aegean dispute grey zones barring a formal vote for categories for deletion, on matter of editing principle. However, were it to be put to a formal vote, I would probably abstrain, and would almost certainly go with whatever decision the vote arrives at. Categories like these are fascinating as a matter of international political study, like learning about the history of conflicts. - Gilgamesh 18:30, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd agree with you in general, if it wasn't for two things: first, (as I also mentioned on Kekrops' page this morning): The set of "grey" islets in the Aegean is ill-defined, because Turkey has never stated exactly which items it claims. There are only vague allegations that it might claim some. With the sole exception of Imia/Kardak, there is really no specific island that is officially disputed. Second, the title "grey zones" embodies a claim that is really more specific than, and different from, simply "disputed". "Disputed" simply means there are conflicting claims about sovereignty status, of whatever kind. "Grey zone" refers specifically to the claim that the sovereignty over some areas was left objectively undecided in 1923 / 1932 / 1947. And that indeed is not a neutral statement of the existence of a dispute, it is exclusively the Turkish claim. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:19, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

You have a point there. I had had the impression that they were clearly defined enough at least on an academic level. If that's not the case, then I suppose it would make sense to eliminate the category. It really was a fascinating subject though... I mean, aside from the yelling and near-declarations of war and unpleasantness and stuff, all the underlying politics involved seemed deep and full of considerations that made for interesting reading. I wanted to organize this interesting topic in a categorical fashion so that the objects of dispute in question could be easily referenced. - Gilgamesh 20:22, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

what is its coordinates ? (for google earth) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.87.168.17 (talk • contribs) 15:53, 22 June 2006

37°03'03N / 27°09'04E (eastern islet); 37°02'55N / 27°08'47E (western islet). According to Turkish government publication. Lukas ^(T.|@) 23:03, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

can anybody actually see them on Google Earth? I can't. Deniz^T_C 18:24, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Yahoo maps has them. Boy, they are small... Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:46, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Several questions

Hello. I'm supposing that there have been intense discussions previously that eventually led to the current title Imia/Kardak. So... what was the title of this article before & where would I find those discussions?

Additionally, which country has administrative rights over the islands? Thanks. (Wikimachine 20:31, 15 May 2007 (UTC))

There wasn't an awful lot of discussion back then (Dec.2005), it seems. There was a merger from two older, much less developed articles, Imia islands and Imia-Kardak crisis, followed by an extensive rewrite by a then new editor, which didn't attract a lot of controversy. -- As for administrative "rights", it's difficult to say because the islands are so insignificant neither country ever did much in the way of administration on them. (except that a Greek municipality leased the grounds to a shepherd to feed two goats on.) It seems that when the crisis erupted, neither side knew very well whether they had any rights over them or not. There's virtually nothing on those islands, no installations, no lighthouse, no nothing. Ever since the crisis it's been factually treated as no-man's land, as far as I know. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:39, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I think we should google the names (and add perhaps the word "Aegean" in the search to make sure we stay on topic and in the correct language) and move it to the most common one.--Ploutarchos 21:49, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

We might do that; however, my feeling is that we wouldn't be finding an awful lot of independent English sources out there. Most of the times when people write either "Kardak" or "Imia" in English, it's actually Turks or Greeks presenting their own national viewpoints, and of course carrying their national naming preferences over into English. Third-party sources quite often say things like "... two tiny islands, called Imia in Greece and Kardak in Turkish ..." etc. Here's a few examples of double naming:

1. "Falling Toward War in the Aegean: A Case Study of the Imia/Kardak Affair" ([3])
2. "Dispute in the Aegean Sea the Imia/Kardak Crisis" ([4])
3. "The recent crisis over Imia/Kardak" ([5])
4. "that both states could agree on to possibly help them with the Imia-Kardak dispute" ([6])

My impression is (but you can prove me wrong) that the double name actually is the most common naming convention in independent English-language sources. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:19, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

What would you say to the WP naming convention that only one single name is recommended & Google test should be used despite its flaws? And that if there is no established name, a compromising title would be best? (Wikimachine 16:49, 16 May 2007 (UTC))

Sounds reasonable, but I wouldn't be happy with the statement that the use of the Google test should be mandated by a WP naming convention. It isn't according to current policy, is it? Much more relevant would be a qualitative analysis of usage in known reliable media outlets and encyclopedias, in my opinion. Apart from that, what would "a compromising title" be in such a case, other than a double name? I understand you've been involved in a similar case in East Asia, right? I would Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:54, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Castellorizo Missing From Maps

Your maps are vague, especially with regards to Castellorizo, a part of the Dodecanese, and a mentioned island in the Treaty of Lausanne. I don't know if the Border Protocol of 1932 marks Castellorizo, but as it was under Italian and Ottoman control, I'd say it did.

The maps aren´t vague, they are restricted in scope. They show only that part of the border zone that is immediately relevant to Imia. If we were to show the whole border, Imia would hardly be visible. As for the texts, Castellorizo is dealt with not by the protocol, but by the original Convention between Italy and Turkey, 1932, to which the protocol was the follow-up. HTH, Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:18, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Date needs to be corrected.

It stated that "the Greek Navy changed the flag (on 30 January), " It was 27th of January, so the next day the escalation happened, as mentioned below". kind regards, Andreas —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.229.17.103 (talk) 12:25, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

POV

The article is POV. Turkish policy is disputing. Nothing is disputing according to international laws--Kalogeropoulos (talk) 00:13, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

If you mean that it would be "NPOV" for the article to take sides and favour the Greek claim over the Turkish claim, and that it is "POV" for the article to present both claims on a par, then no, you are turning the concept of NPOV into its precise opposite. The Turkish claim exists. It is notable. You may think it is complete bogus. Incidentally, I think the same. Still, it will be presented here and Wikipedia will not make a decision that either side is right and the other side is wrong. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:41, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps we could say something along the lines of "internationally recognised as part of Greece, but disputed by Turkey". ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 07:16, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

But is it? I don't think there is a whole lot of governments that have commented explicitly in such a way, since the crisis erupted. And since there is virtually no actual practice of exercise of sovereignty that foreign nations could demonstrate their recognition or non-recognition over, what is there to tell? I would certainly welcome if anyone found a few good references if anybody independent of the Greek or Turkish side had ever publicly taken sides, we could quote those somewhere. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:22, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I seem to recall Italy, as the prior owner, backing up the Greek claim. But you're right, we need more sources. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 07:28, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Right, the Italian stance would be interesting. There was an interesting article one day in the Turkish paper Radikal ([7]), by liberal columnist Ismet Berkan. He claims that during the days of the crisis, the Italian government sent the Turks a confidential report outlining what they knew about the legal situation, apparently supportive of the Greek view, but that report was (deliberately?) mislaid somewhere inside the Turkish bureaucracy and never forwarded to the then prime minister (Ciller) and Foreign Minister (Baykal). Berkan is blaming diplomat Onur Öymen for hiding the report. – Of course, that's pretty speculative, as it's just a claim in the press without any official confirmation (and such confirmation would probably be all but impossible to get.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:45, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Do you read Turkish? ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 07:51, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, enough to manage an average newspaper report. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:54, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Its not wikipedias' business to deal with international treaties etc. They exist or not. In a year they may change and declare Imia/Kardak turkish area. Still we have to mention the new international treaty. At the moment there is not such a treaty. That is my point and not POV alone. It is a matter of historical accuracy. Thanks a lot for your answers and for your attention. Pls be free to remove POV if community decides otherwise--Kalogeropoulos (talk) 09:21, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Factual Sovereignity

thumb|right|281px|Turkish warship peacefully warns the Greek fishermen to leave the Kardak islands in 12.12.2008.

Turk SAT commandos operated to the west Kardak island in 1996 without being awared and then Greek commandos learnt by American CIA (after 4 hours later from the operation ended) that Turkish SAT commandos are in the Kardak islands. Then, Greek commandos left the islands in 08:00 whereas Turkish commandos (after the Greek side agreed that the islands are Turkish territory) left the island in 08:30. Currently, Turkish warships "peacefully" warn Greek fishermen if they approach the islands. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alehandraxxx (talk • contribs)

Not sure what you're trying to say, your English is rather broken. Sorry, but your account that Greek commandos left "after they agreed that the island is Turkish" seems a bit confused; that's certainly not what the historical sources say. The photograph is interesting, of course, but did you really take it yourself? Where were you when you took it? Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:12, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

This is a photo from one of the prototype of laser guided missiles loaded Turkish Unmanned Aerial Vehicle TIHA developed by the Turkish Aerospace Industries for the Turkish Armed Forces. I have 10 more pictures from this UAV. If you write your gmail here, I can send you them as well. Lokman346 (talk) 22:29, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

You don't own the copyright to it though, do you? Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:35, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Keep in mind, this user is a sockpuppet and has been blocked. AKRadecki^Speaketh 01:42, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Lol, Turkish Army regularly distributes newly photographed Kardak images to the media almost in daily basis for public domain use ( For Example, Hurriyet Newspaper Kardak new in December 2008: http://arama.hurriyet.com.tr/arsivnews.aspx?id=10567721 ). Hence, no copyright over these photos.ElizaPalace102 (talk) 12:02, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Kardak exerts an irresistible erotic attraction to gilt-headed breams [1].

LOL, there's a "tsipoura crisis" ongoing, and I'm not getting any? I haven't heard any of that in the Greek media, nor from our Greek friends, they seem all to be too busy covering the riots in Athens.

I can see the Hurriyet photo is obviously from the same source and same incident as yours here (just taken a few seconds later, same ship), but unfortunately that still tells us little about the copyright status. Are you sure they are intended as public domain, technically? Any chance we could find them on an original government website perhaps?

BTW, are you the same contributor as "Lokman" above? Better not to switch account names arbitrarily, the idea is that everybody should stick with one. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:25, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

LOL, Turks are very upset about riots in Greece. Turkish Number #1 Newspaper Zaman attaches importance to the Greek society and employs Greek author (Herkül Milas) to write in Zaman to understand Greece deeply. Here, the Herkül Milas's writing in Zaman Newspaper: [[8]]. ElizaPalace102 (talk) 12:50, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Title

What is the reasoning behind this article's title and why isn't the same logic applied elsewhere? Why isn't Falkland Islands moved to Falkland Islands/Islas Malvinas for example? Would anyone object to a rename and why? //Dirak 19:56, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

See top of this page. I'd prefer leaving it where it is. I believe the neutrality of the name choice in this case is important part of the neutrality of the article. The Falklands case is really different: There's a clear preponderance of the one name in English usage, and there's a very obvious sense in which the Falklands are factually part of Britain and not Argentina: factual exercise of sovereignty. Neither of these two criteria holds with any degree of clarity in this case. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:43, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I concur. Let's just leave it as is. Not just the title, but the rest of the article as well. As FPAS had said before, this article has been out of the controversy area for a long time. These "islands" (not even real ones) are famous because of the whole, well, you know what :) If it were up to me, I would actually sink the "island" and get it over with it once and for all! Baristarim 09:39, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, that wouldn't be a bad idea. But I guess we would continue to argue as to who would have the right to use the reef for scuba diving... (actually I know of an underwater reef exactly in the middle between the Turkish/Greek coasts north of Lesbos that is split between the fishermen of the two countries. Turks fish on the north side, and Greeks on the south...) NikoSilver 13:10, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Great idea. If Imia was to vanish from the map, then the boundary of the territorial waters would presumably be the median line defined by the Greek islet of Kalolimnos on the one side, and the Turkish islets of Çavuş and Çopan on the other, right? That line actually leaves one of the two Imia rocks on the Turkish side, and goes exactly through the middle of the other, if this map is right [9]. Happy diving! :-) Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:43, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Shall I call my other friends for carrying out this task? :-) NikoSilver 12:52, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I think "Imia/Kardak" is OK, as it is a short title and reflects the dispute. We are lucky that these islands are not claimed by half a dozen of countries like the Spratly islands. May I propose (if they would listen) to the two governments to name the isles "Imiadak" or "Kardimia" until they resolve the dispute? Kentavros (talk) 20:13, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Greek

The islands are part of the EU and Greece. They were also used as grazing land for Greek owned goats. The recent Turkish challege has not been resolved. If everything challenged by Turkey in the Aegean is to loose its 'Greek' tag, then please be my guest.Also, upon request I had posted an extract from the Turkish Ministry of Defence that showed the islands as Greek, but that map was buried by (interested and biased?) parties. Politis (talk) 15:55, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

The whole point of the existence of this article is that there is a dispute. We are going to describe the dispute neutrally. There is no way on earth we can do so if we are going to announce in the very first sentence that the one side is right and the other side is wrong.

Personally, I am just as convinced as you that the Turkish claim is patently untenable (though not primarily because of the goats, neither because of this or that map), but since there is no demonstrable consensus to that effect expressed in reliable independent neutral sources, we are not going to say that. Simple.

By the way, if you want to really add something interesting, you could do some research for the following. I remember I once read in the Turkish press (but can't remember where and when exactly) that the Turkish government took some legal advice on this and related issues from independent law experts, and was politely and silently told that its position on this particular matter was exceptionally weak. Now, if we had a reliably sourced report of this, that would indeed be interesting.

By the way, re. your edit: the islets are still and have always been uninhabited. This is a very pertinent fact for the intro, I don't understand why you removed that, of all things. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:30, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

On another note, does this article really need such an ugly and cumbersome title? The most common name in English seems to be Imia, rightly or wrongly. That is also where the corresponding German and Norwegian articles are located. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 17:31, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, is it really? The "most common name", I mean. My impression is still what I said some time last year (see section "Several questions" above), that double naming seems to be the most common. But I'm open to being proved wrong. I'd just like to see it documented somewhere. And in a case like this, I'd ask for illustration only in politically neutral independent sources, ignoring the obvious preferences of Greek and Turkish authors when writing English. If "Imia" alone is indeed significantly more common in neutral usage, then no problem, of course. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:47, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

That's why I didn't bother to cite the Greek or Turkish wikis. The problem with Google searches is that Kardak appears to be a personal name in Turkish as well. But compare, say, "Imia islets" to "Kardak islets", or "Imia crisis" to "Kardak crisis". ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 17:53, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Kardak is not a personal name in Turkish. If Google comes up with more Kardak results than Imia results its because either there are more Turkish coverage on the issue or it's the name that has been accepted more widely. It has nothing to do with "being a Turkish personal name".--Diren Yardimli (talk) 12:08, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Ethnicity of the name Imia

One IP has been blocked for edit warring today for accidentally but repeatedly asserting that the name Imia is just as Turkish as the name Kardak. After trying to make this IP understand that the ethnicity of one of the names has nothing to do with ownership of the islands themselves, administrators had no choice but to block this person. If the lead paragraph can be edited to prevent further incidents of this nature, such a change would be welcome. -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 14:17, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Not much we can do against editors who simply don't understand English, is there? Thanks for handling the reverts, but I don't think we can or should do anything in terms of changing the article; the intro seems crystal clear to me. I've tried to explain to the IP in Turkish; let's see if my Turkish is more intelligible than their English... Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:00, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

There is a dispute therefore the reasons for naming the rocks Imia before Kardak should be well explained. Saying that this has nothing to do with ownership is false, it has everything to do with ownership.Hittit (talk) 20:24, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Technical protocol

What is the purpose for the map of the technical protocol? It is clear that if this was to be seen as valid there would not have been a dispute. Since placing this map is in favoure of the Greek side and contradicts objectivity then there should not be any problem if a map is placed to portary the Turkish view excluding this protocol. Countries make protocols per se these are not valid until ratified this goes for any drawn up agreement.Hittit (talk) 20:24, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

You'd be quite welcome to provide another map showing the Turkish position about where the border is. The only problem is: the map will show nothing, because there is no such Turkish position. The Turkish government has never published any official definition of what its claims are, with respect to the "grey zones". We can only presume that Imia is part of the package, but how far does it go? The official Turkish position isn't that the border is somewhere else; the claim is that the border is undefined. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:09, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes we can use the maps e.g., from Hakan Cem Isiklar, an extensive study of disputed areas in the Aegean and the grey zones. There are maps that is not an issue, we can flud the article if this is what it is required. I however suggest removal of the technical protocol map so there will be no need to provide additional maps supporting Turkish views. Hittit (talk) 22:47, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

If you can show a map that represents an official view of the Turkish government re Imia and the other "grey zones", I'd be curious to see it indeed. – No, we will definitely not remove the map illustrating the 1932 protocol. The protocol is the central document for any discussion of the legal status of the island; illustrating it is obviously pertinent to the article and informative. The controversy over its actual validity is of course already described fairly and accurately in the article. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:52, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I do not see any issue with the official Turkish stance on Kardak or the other islands which we today refer as “grey zones”. If one bothers to visit the Turkish MFA web page it is all there:

“There are numerous small islets and rocks in the Aegean ownership of which is not determined by international treaties. Most of those features can not sustain human habitation and have no economic life of their own. Greece has attempted to change their status by opening some of those geographical features to artificial settlement. To this end, Greece has enacted laws and regulations that have no bearing from the point of international law. Turkey regards this new Greek policy as another attempt to establish "fait accomplis" with a view to close-off the Aegean Sea as a Greek lake.”

“The Greek side tries to base her sovereignty over the Kardak rocks and over some other similar islets and rocks on

4 January 1932 and 28 December 1932 Turkish-Italian documents Her succession of the Italian titles in the Aegean through the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty. It is interesting to note that there is no mention of any "Imia Islet" in these documents. The 4 January 1932 Agreement does not concern the Kardak Rocks. A reference was made to the Kardak Rocks in the 28 December 1932 Document. However, legal procedures with regard to the latter were not completed. Neither was it registered with the League of Nations.

Article 18 of the Covenant of the League of Nations reads as follows; "Every Treaty or International Engagement entered into hereinafter by any Member of the League shall be forthwith registered with the Secretariat and shall as soon as possible be published by it. No such Treaty or International Engagement shall be binding until so registered." Therefore, no legally binding document exists in this respect.

That Italy has approached the Turkish Government in 1937 raising the issue of ratification of the 28 December 1932 document is an additional indication against its validity. This Italian demarche was never responded to and no such action was ever taken.

The Greek proposal submitted during the negotiations of the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty to make a reference to the 1932 two documents was not accepted, and no such reference was included in the text of the Treaty. The fact that Greece has approached the Turkish Government in 1950 and yet again in 1953 proposing talks with a view to exchanging letters between the two Governments ascertaining the validity of the above-mentioned two documents between Turkey and Greece shows that Greece also had doubts as to their validity.

The only document that may be referred to regarding the sovereignty of Dodecanese islands, as already been pointed out, is the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty. This Treaty in its Article 14 enumerates those islands to be transfered to Greek sovereignty one by one. Kardak, is not mentioned among these.”

“"1-Italy hereby cedes to Greece in full sovereignty the Dodacanese Islands indicated hereafter, namley Stampalia (Astropalia), Rhodes (Rhodos), Calki (Kharki), Scarpanto, Casos (Casso), Piscopis (Tilos), Misiros (Niyros), Calimnos (Kalymnos), Leros, Patmos, Lipsos (Lipso), Simi (Symi), Cos (Kos) and Castellorizo, as well as the adjacent islets.

2-These islands shall be and shall remain demilitarized."”

Since the protocol refered is merely Greek POV (need to clarify this in the article) then a map of the Dodacanese Islands indicated hereafter, namley Stampalia (Astropalia), Rhodes (Rhodos), Calki (Kharki), Scarpanto, Casos (Casso), Piscopis (Tilos), Misiros (Niyros), Calimnos (Kalymnos), Leros, Patmos, Lipsos (Lipso), Simi (Symi), Cos (Kos) and Castellorizo, as well as the adjacent islets is the official Turkish view of what belongs to Greece. I think this view is clear and official enough. Hittit (talk) 12:21, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

... and your point is, what, exactly? Those arguments above are already covered in the article. Read it. All this doesn't change the fact that you have nothing to draw a map from. That page by the Turkish government doesn't state exactly which islets it considers "grey areas". No Turkish government publication does. The Turkish government has for years systematically dodged the question of what its actual claims are. It hasn't even clarified whether it claims Kardak to be just "grey" (of undefined sovereignty) like the other islets further afield, or to be actually Turkish (and, if the latter, why Kardak would differ from the other "grey" ones). – The issue is of course how to delineate what are "adjacent" islets and which ones aren't. For instance, if you look at the map by that Turkish author you mentioned, [10], you will notice that he assumes the group of five little islets in between Kos and Nisiros to be "grey", i.e. undefined. Why? They sure look "adjacent" to Kos and Nisiros to me. On the other hand, he grants to Greece the little islands in between Rhodes and Chalki, apparently accepting that they indeed are "adjacent". Why? At the same time, he is showing Kardak as being unambiguously Turkish, rather than "grey"/undefined. Why? Isn't its status just the same as that of the others? – What I'm asking is, have you got official Turkish government documentation of what they consider to fall under that "adjacent" clause? Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:31, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

So you think it is unclear what the Turkish government views as Greek sovereignty? Not all is mentioned in the article for example the below important points seem not described well enough (these are just brushed off as mere diplomatic exchanges, with that view the protocol in question was also then a mere exchange of notes, but the difference is that the protocol has been awarded a map and portrayed as something legal), any reason for that?

• That Italy has approached the Turkish Government in 1937 raising the issue of ratification of the 28 December 1932 document is an additional indication against its validity. This Italian demarche was never responded to and no such action was ever taken.

• The Greek proposal submitted during the negotiations of the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty to make a reference to the 1932 two documents was not accepted, and no such reference was included in the text of the Treaty.

• The fact that Greece has approached the Turkish Government in 1950 and yet again in 1953 proposing talks with a view to exchanging letters between the two Governments ascertaining the validity of the above-mentioned two documents between Turkey and Greece shows that Greece also had doubts as to their validity. Hittit (talk) 12:53, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

A very simple reason indeed: the protocol is publicly known, and having a visual illustration of its contents helps to understand it. The later exchanges are, for the most part, not publicly known, so what could we say about them, other than that the governments in the 1990s made conflicting claims about them? About the 1947 negotiations, I could tell you a lot about why the Turkish story doesn't add up (I've actually researched that a bit), but that would be WP:OR, so it's beside the point. But you're still dodging the issue: you said you wanted to include maps of the Turkish position; I asked you if you have information concrete enough to actually draw a map from. Obviously you haven't. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:07, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Well obviously you have your already well define views on the matter. The way I see it we can continue this endless discussion but I doubt any conclusion would be reached. I will not bother providing maps representing Turkish views and listing the islands by name of what has been transferred to Greece only for it to be then removed as POV. That would be waist of my time. What this article clearly lacks is any type a dispute type of discussion, as it is I see it as nothing else than a extension of the Greek point of view. As you your self said what is "adjacent", how can an uninhabited rock or chain of rocks with no potential to sustain human habitat be dependable on a Greek island? Or to go round the issue artificially place habitat or irrelevant structures just to show "adjacent". The term "adjacent" needs to be viewed as it was during 1947 to avoid later manipulations of the status. My five cents on the topic. BTW a very nice illustration indeed, I take it illustrations with contrary views would not assist Wikipedia readers understand the issue better so why needlessly stir the water.Hittit (talk) 13:27, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Name of the Islets

We see at the chapter Legal status of the islets that they were given to Italy with Peace Treaty of Lausanne and from Italy to Greece with the Treaty of Paris. So they belong legally to Greece. So why the name "Kardak" next to the Greek name "Imia"? Then if we wanted to be fair, we should also write the name in English, Chinese, Arabic etc etc —Preceding unsigned comment added by K4t3r1n490 (talk • contribs) 00:40, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Well in all honesty we do not see anywhere Kardak rocks being given to Greece, so we are legally debating and back in 1996 the guns were out on the topic, hardly concerning the Chinese or Arabs it is a Turco-Greek issue of Aegean delimatations concerning more than just two rocks Hittit (talk) 20:32, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Separate article for the islands and dispute

Why not have a separate article about the island and a separate article about the dispute?  Nipsonanomhmata  ^(Talk) 16:01, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, I guess because apart from the dispute there really is nothing much to say about them. I doubt there is even a single reliable source that talks about these islands independently of the dispute. What would such an article contain, apart from the bare geographical facts about their size and situation? And since those geographical facts will in any case have to be repeated in the dispute article again, the one article will always be a redundant subset of the other. – Among possible parallels, Hans Island has a single article; Isla Perejil has two, but with a different division than what you seem to envisage (main article includes geography and disputed legal situation, sub-article includes only the events of a specific brief crisis). The latter model would certainly be possible here too, but I really don't see what its advantages would be. Liancourt Rocks has two articles, but there is also substantially more material about the non-dispute aspects to be covered. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:20, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

There are numerous articles about islands that have fewer basic facts than these and the article could link to the dispute. The reason I mentioned it is that the template for the Aegean islands links to "Imia/Kardak". When I clicked on the link I was expecting to get some details about the islands. I wasn't expecting to get a full-on dispute.  Nipsonanomhmata  ^(Talk) 16:26, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, isn't it nice when you get more than you expected :-) ? And I'd expect that apart from people who systematically click through the islands template out of idle curiosity, or because they like to edit such articles, almost every potential reader who comes to the page does so because they want to read about the dispute. Seriously, why would anybody else ever do so? Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:29, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

When I click a link for an island I expect to see details about the history, geography, maybe something about the wildlife or the climate. If there is a major ongoing dispute it should be mentioned and linked to and a separate article can contain the dispute. It doesn't seem fair to dump such a massive dispute on such a small island. Besides this article is 99% about the dispute and not about the islands. I think it is justified to create an article called the "Imia dispute" or "Imia/Kardak dispute" and give some breathing space to what one normally expects to see on an article that is supposed to be about the islands. What I'm saying is that this article is not about the islands, it is about the dispute, and that the title should reflect that.  Nipsonanomhmata  ^(Talk) 16:42, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, there is nothing about climate and wildlife and history. There is no climate data for these islands (certainly nothing different from the surrounding ones); there is no wildlife worth mentioning except for a few tsipoures in the sea around them (and even they are notable only through the dispute), and there is no history (again, apart from what is known because of the dispute). So, what breathing space, for what information? – It's funny the way you say this, it's indeed not "fair to dump such a massive dispute" on those poor little rocks, but then, that big unfair ugly dispute is indeed the only reason people ever talk about them. Seriously, again, what would the article contain that wouldn't be identical to what is now the lead sentences? Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:50, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

In simple terms it is possible to put the first two paragraphs of this article in to a new article about the islands and allow any further information about the islands to be added to that (excluding the dispute). Those two paragraphs are longer than most articles about islands. Then this article could renamed to something like "Imia-Kardak dispute". It would shorten this article by two paragraphs and this article would link to the article about the islands. It isn't hard to expand the article about the islands with information on how to get there (without starting a war). Another paragraph that summarises the history without going in to all the detail of the dispute. Anybody else out there with an opinion on this?  Nipsonanomhmata  ^(Talk) 17:01, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Anything about "how to get there" would be WP:OR, because nobody has ever written about that; it's also trivial (you just hire a kaiki and off you go). About history, again, there is none. Nobody ever gave these islands any notice, nobody ever lived there, nobody ever described them, nobody ever cared about them. And your spun-out two paragraphs would not shorten the dispute article, because we'd have to repeat them there anyway. If you envisage a reader who really just wants to read about the geography and not about the dispute, they can simply read the lead paragraph of the present article, and then stop reading. What's so difficult about that? Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:09, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Names of Greek ships present at Imia

My entry was deleted on the basis of not providing sources and evidence. The information I got is from Lieutenant Commander of the Hellenic Navy, Konstantinos Kousataroglou, who was present at the event, and he was the second in command onboard KYKNOS. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vmanoussos (talk • contribs) 23:59, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but word-of-mouth testimonials are not acceptable and they do not constitute reliable sources. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 00:10, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Distances

The Imia/Kardak islands are 3.8 nautical miles off the Turkish coast. Lausanne Treaty states that all the islands in the area that were 3.0 miles off the Turkish coast are ceded to Italy. All islands that are less than 3 nautical miles (2.9 miles or less) from the Turkish coast, are under Turkish sovereignty. Aren't the Kardak/Imia 3.8 nautical miles from the nearest Turkish coast? Unless someone can prove the opposite (prove, not claim), weren't the Imia/Kardak ceded to Italy? Or am I missing something? I find it strange that the Wikipedia accepts as NEUTRAL a claim from one side (Turkish), I also find strange that the Wikipedia ignores that the Imia/Kardak's distance from nearest Turkish Coast (3.8) falls under the treaty's condition of 3.0 miles. And I find it very weird that the Wikipedia, due to the above 2 disputed reasons, changed the island's status from Greek Island to 'DISPUTED Island', despite that the Treaty's conditions are clear about nautical miles. The Imia/Kardak aren't even 3.0 or 2.9 Nautical miles near the Turkish coast for the claim to have a valid ground. I believe this article is a POV--SilentResident (talk) 19:41, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia didn't change their status; the history of 1996 did. It is a simple fact that they are disputed now. That's not to say that the two sides' claims are necessarily of equal validity – I, personally, find the Turkish claim just as absurd as you do. But we can't go by our own reasoning here; we must go by what reliable sources say. If there were a clear consensus among independent political and legal observers expressed in reliable sources that the Turkish claim is untenable, then we could adapt the article accordingly. Unfortunately, most sources don't make such bold judgments; they only report what the arguments of the two sides are. And so that's what we will do too. If we were to go with your edit [11], we would essentially be putting forward our own judgment that the Greek side is right; that's something we can't do. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:22, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

No, there is a serious POV in this article, FutPerf, we need your help and the help of the community. I am gonna report this article to the moderators, we find the Imia article very biased in favor of one side (Turkey over Greece) rather than neutral. I don't understand why the Turkish claim over the island is adopted as a consensus here while in all other articles in the entire Encyclopedia are not accepting the disputer's/offender's claims over a dispute, but rather, a neutral stance. Let me list some examples of consensus in the articles of Wikipedia in various other disputes across the region and the world: In the Cyprus Dispute, the offender, Turkey, disputes the term "Invasion of Cyprus", to describe the 1974 events of the island. And so, Turkey calls it "Cyprus Peace Operation". The rest of the world does not backs Turkey's view over how the event could be called, and so, the Wikipedia rightfully calls it a Turkish invasion of Cyprus, which is the valid term given the violation of international laws by Turkey. In the Macedonia Naming Dispute, the offender, Greece, disputes the Republic of Macedonia's right over the name Macedonia, and again, here the Wikipedia didn't take the side of the disputer, allowing the republic to be called after its constitutional name (Republic of Macedonia) in the Wikipedia, which is logic, no matter if Greece's positions are right or not. All the articles I have visited in the Wikipedia - from Falklands to the Middle East, the Wikipedia adopts a neutral view on the disputes. But in the Imia article, where we have 2 sides (Greece and Turkey), a clear pre-1996 status (the Imia islets are under the administration of the Dodecanese Regional municipality, Periphery of South Aegean Sea, Greece) for almost 90 years to a century now, and yet, just because Turkey decides to militarily dispute the sovereignty of Greece over them sometime in 1996, the Wikipedia immediately accepted the Turkish claims as valid and not Greece's proven sovereignty over them, and despite that Italy, and the European Union, voiced their support to Greece on the matter. Why I am saying that the Wikipedia isn't neutral and accepted the Turkish Claims? Because: The Greek stance on the dispute, backed by other countries is clear: the islands belonged first to Italy and then are ceded to Greece. Turkish claims which are not backed even by Turkey's closest allies, is that the island do not belong to Greece nor Turkey, and the Turkish Government classifies them as Gray Zones, while Greece considers those claims as invalid. Now, considering all those facts, who couldn't call this article in Wikipedia, where Turkish side (Gray Zones - Disputed Island) is the mandatory, is a consensus, despite all the facts and the Laussane Treaty itself(!)?, as POV? If this can be called neutrality, then why not expand this type of neutrality to all other articles that have similar disputes? Really, I am reading again and again the Imia's article which yet didn't explained clearly why one side's opinion on something, does has the power to change the consensus over the islets. If this is not a POV, then what is it? --SilentResident (talk) 05:04, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Added the missing Administration info panel

I noticed the Administration info of the Islets in the article were never added to the Info Panel. No idea why. Perhaps because the islands are pretty small and people often miss to add such info. I added the data to the Panel (the pro-1996 data could be considered as valid, if I am not mistaken). The Islets were (or are, depending the matter) within the regional unit of Dodecanese, which is part of South Aegean Periphery. Seat of Administration: City of Rhodes. Note: this does has nothing to do with the dispute of the Islet's status by Turkey and could not be considered as such. I am posting here my changes as I have a fear that someone may undo the changes or remove the info. Just in case, and to be sure that I didn't violate any POVs for the edits, I checked the Senkaku Islands article and some other articles first, about disputed island's administrations, and checked how the Info panel about the island's administration is listed in the Info Panel (despite the islet's disputed status, the Senkaku were administered by Ishigaki, Okinawa, much like the Imia were by Rhodes, Southern Aegean), and then made the edits here. --SilentResident (talk) 05:41, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Pointless section, this is a dispute between countries and not local municipalities, what additional purpose would an administrative info box serve? Dispute parties Turkey and Greece are already listed, as this is a uninhabited rock formation hardly any administrative power has been ever exercised. Hittit (talk) 15:36, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to having the administrative divisions in the infobox, although I don't really care much either way. For geographic features such as islands, administrative info of this kind is usually useful enough and it makes sense to have it in the box. In the case of a disputed feature, like here, the administrative info goes inside the "disputing parties" section, not because the municipalities or provinces in question are themselves parties to the dispute (they normally have no role in international matters), but simply because the two nations involved typically have a different administrative structure each, and ascribing a feature to such an administrative division only makes sense within the context of the overall claim of sovereignty by each nation. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:28, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Resident, I already replied to your claims in my TP, but as you have opened a discussion here let me add a few words. You want to add administration info, you should do it for both parties. The administrative status of Kardak is in the List of Turkish islands. As I understand you speak Turkish, you could also read the administrative status of Kardak within the Bodrum district of the Muğla province in Turkish WP. This way you can make objective editing...--E4024 (talk) 15:49, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

E4024, I only had info about the one party's administrative info. Unfortunately I failed to find the Turkish side's info about it. Kardak aren't even listed in the official pages of the local municipalities. Or am I missing something. But this isn't a valid reason to revert my edits... If you have the info, you are more than welcome to add them yourself! That is why, the Wikipedia, the more people it has, the more its pages can be enriched! :) --SilentResident (talk) 23:44, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Nowadays is it difficult to find sources in Athens? --E4024 (talk) 23:29, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Athens has undergone an administration overhaul very recently, only in year 2010, in which the country was undergone a massive re-organization of the local municipality borders and authorizations, known as the "Kallikratis Plan", which only added to the confusion for old articles in Wikipedia on which sources to be taken in account. If I find any info, its mostly from the decentralized administrations and not from the central government in Athens. Unless my memory and search just failed me. --SilentResident (talk) 23:44, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

This article is biased

This article is completely biased with the Greek side. You can even see the number of Greek users on the talk page. Wikipedia should be unbiased with any political issue.

Cartographic evidence should be completely removed. Who says cartographic maps is the new style on deciding what belongs to who? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.17.208.243 (talk) 02:04, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Of course, only the sword of Padishah can decide what belongs to who, command us efenti... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.140.45.106 (talk) 16:15, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Trivial truism?

I have reverted the reversion of my edit by Future because I don't think that the explicit affirmation of the Greek borders as EU borders by the European Parliament is trivial. I also think that if the author of the paper also chose to mention the statement of the European Parliament, about Greek borders being EU borders, then the matter is not trivial at all. The diff contains my edit-summary in reply to Future's edit-summary. I almost never disagree with Future and in fact I sent him thanks when he at first restored the same sentence. But then when he chose to delete it for whatever reason, I chose to re-add it in a less contentious phrase, thinking that he would not object to it. His reason, the second time he deleted the phrase, was that it is a "trivial truism" which does not enhance the presentation of the article. I have stated above why I disagree with this assesssment. Dr. K. 22:36, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

You did well. I am afraid, from the moment a party's unilateral territorial claims against an EU member state are affecting the EU itself, the EU's position on this matter should be mentioned. Furthermore, I have restored the deleted sentence about the position of these international organizations on the lead, which should be mentioned due to the dispute having its effects reaching beyond the bilateral affairs and thus affect EU-Turkey relations as well, with the EU urging Turkey to respect Greek sovereignty in its annual reports for the candidate country. -- SILENTRESIDENT 22:03, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Dammit, I didn't do all the work of cleaning up those refs [12][13] just so that you could then revert the same broken garbage back in. Don't you even look at the state you leave articles in [14] after you've ploughed through them? Seriously, competence is required on Wikipedia; dealing with this kind of childish editing is aggravating. (Which is why I couldn't find the strength for dealing with this earlier.)

So, now you have reinserted that bit in the lead, with four footnotes, all of which are bad, and none of which support what you're saying.

1. http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/pdf/key_documents/2015/20151110_report_turkey.pdf A primary source provided as a naked URL (At least take the trouble to cite your sources properly next time!) This is last year's EU Commission report on Turkey's EU accession. It does not address the Imia issue at all. The verbiage about Turkey having to respect principles of "peaceful settlement of disputes" is in response to the issue of the casus belli regarding the extent of territorial waters. The document also mentions the continental shelf issue and complaints about air space violations. Not a word about territorial disputes like the Imia one or the other "grey zones".
2. "Turkey's Accession to the European Union: An Unusual Candidacy - Google Books". Books.google.gr. 2008-12-28. Retrieved 2015-08-25. – reference sloppily mis-cited as being "published by Google" and without proper author attribution, also breaking the reflist display because it's now duplicating the same freaking footnote that I actually fixed for you. For crying out loud. Yes, this ref legitimately mentions the EU Parliament resolution, plus another one by the EU Council of Ministers from July 1996 (not anything by the "European Commission" as your edit claimed; did you mix up those two institutions?) It does not appear from this ref whether the C.o.M. actually took Greece's side regarding the merits of the case (committing itself to the view that Greece's claim to Imia was actually justified, as the Parliament did); the only thing it is reported as saying is that the dispute should be settled via the International Court of Justice. Those are two very different positions to take.
3. "United States of America Congressional Record Proceedings and Debates of the ... - Google Books". Books.google.gr. 1995-12-25. Retrieved 2015-08-25. Another sloppy weblink misattributed to "Google" as a publisher and without proper description. This is a quotation from some US congressman speaking in Congress, who happened to be mentioning the same EU Parliament resolution. Why on earth would we want to use that as a source? Nothing in this ref about any of the other EU institutions, be it the Commission or the Council or whatever else.
4. "Europarliament Support Greek Positions On Aegean". Kastellorizo.org. 1995-03-06. Retrieved 2015-08-25. A news report mirrored on an unreliable garbage website ("castellorizo.org", seriously?) including the text of that EU Parliament resolution. Yet another broken ref you inserted obliterating one that I had actually fixed, and which would have gone to the actual official text on a reputable mirror.

Referencing technicalities apart, saying simply that the "EU" as a whole "supported the Greek position" is, at best, a serious oversimplification. I can distinctly remember that the prevailing feeling in Greece at the time was one of disappointment at a marked lack of support from Europe. Sure, the EU Parliament unequivocally took Greece's side, but it was an institution of even less actual power back in the 1990s than it is now, and its resolution was of largely symbolic value. The institutions that represented actual EU power (Commission, Council, and Council of Ministers) were much more reluctant to take sides, and I don't remember having read about any resolution from any of them that unequivocally supported the Greek territorial position (rather than just calling on Turkey – or indeed both sides – to refrain from the use of force). All of this is far too complex to cram into the lead, if we were to cover it properly. But then, what you really want here is not really a fair treatment of what the EU actually did and said; what you want is an opportunity for filling the lead up with nice juicy sentences suggesting that "Greece was right". That's why I fully expect you will continue edit-warring that stuff back in there. – Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:59, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

So, let me understand: You are dismissing sources just because -in your opinion- the "EU Parliament was an institution of even less actual power back in the 1990s" and "Commission, Council, and Council of Ministers were much more reluctant to take sides"? -- SILENTRESIDENT 15:34, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

If you are not capable of reading what I wrote, I can't help you. Try reading it again. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:23, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

@Future Perfect at Sunrise and Dr.K.:, Guys, you might want to give this a look. [15] The European Commission, on 2 December 2016 (today) reacts to Turkish claims on Imia islets and urges from Turkey in a very clear manner to to respect Greek sovereignty and find a peaceful solution to the dispute. This time, is not a mere document, is an official statement. This statement comes only 24 hours after Turkey's reinstated claims on Imia isles. [16]. Again, this is reflected on the content that Future Perfect has removed from the lead, in part because "EU Parliament was an institution of even less actual power back in the 1990s" and "Commission, Council, and Council of Ministers were much more reluctant to take sides". What do you say, now we have a clear statement by the Comission as well. Isn't this Comission statement sufficing either? Just a question, because we have both official documents and official statements from EU's institutions regarding the EU's position about Turkey's disputes with Greece. Or is this still a "serious oversimplification"? -- SILENTRESIDENT 21:45, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

That statement doesn't appear to be referring to the Imia issue though, does it? Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:53, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

It is. Turkey disputes 2 islands within 24 hours and EU Comission reacts to this. What else could have been? EU asks Turkey to respect Greek sovereignty and urges Turkey to solve any disputes with Greece through peaceful means. It does not name the islands one by one, but you know very well to what the EU refers to. This time there is no room for assumptions, I am afraid. -- SILENTRESIDENT 22:03, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

The commission didn't "react". The commission was asked for a comment, by journalists, and responded to that with a carefully worded diplomatic statement reiterating what they've been saying for decades: that Turkey needs to refrain from provocations, that it needs to respect sovereignty rights, etc. What the statement craftily avoids talking about is what those sovereignty rights actually are and how far they reach. What it does not say is: hands off Imia; Imia is Greek soil. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:09, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

I am baffled. I remember you calling me for bias, but now it is clear that I am not the one who refuses to see events unfolding the last hours and their relation. The Comission calls for the respect of the Greek sovereignty because Turkey has disputed it in the past 24 hours... These are not unrelated and mere coincidences. What else should the EU say to Turkey to make it clear to you that the one is related to the other? To hear the EU specifically naming the one island after the other as if they are items in a... shopping list? Perhaps something like: Turkey must respect Greek sovereignty on Imia, also on Kassos, also on A, also on B, also on X and also on Y islands (and the list goes...)"? You know, these are international relations, this is diplomacy, the diplomatic messages can be quite as clear as a crystal, without having to go into many details. After all, listing the islands in question is impossible, given how Turkey's position lack credibility (the number of Greek islands it disputes, differs from time to time. It is no longer just one or two as it was in 1996, but more. And this number seems to grow without any end. If my memory does not fail me, Turkey started out with just 2 islands in 1996, but this quickly became over 6 islands in 2000, 16 islands in 2014 and 18 islands in 2016. Only recently, a Turkish parliamentarian from the MHP Parti, has raised this number to a whopping amount of 200 islands! I don't think you really need to actually refer to the (growing) list of islands just to see the relation between Comission's strong message to Turkey and Turkey's never-ending claims and disputes. If what you say does not apply for Imia, then, I guess, the EU statement does not apply to the rest of the islands either. Right? (This is a rhetorical question, I do not expect an answer). This logic lacks sense and is disappointing to hear from an admin.

Here some more sources from various newspapers and portals, to cast aside any doubts that this is about Imia islands: [17] and [18].

Dear Future Perfect, I can supply even more sources on the EU's position regarding Imia islands, but I don't think sources can make a difference here, where the problem is the refusal of certain editors to admit the obvious. Statements like "the Comission being reluctant to take sides on the Imia dispute" are contradicted by the reality. Because the EU has supported Greece in more than one occasion. For example in the 2015 Imia Incident (which occured almost 2 years ago), the European Comission, in its official statement, not only referred to the islets by their Greek name (and excluding the Turkish one) but clearly declared that it supports the Greek side on the dispute and has asked Turkey to avoid tensions with Greece and promote good neighborly relations instead. It specifically said: "The Commission put its wholehearted support behind Greece" (on Imia), and that "it felt that the tension in the area should be reduced on a lasting basis and that good neighborly relations should be re-established between Greece and Turkey". Here is the Comission's official statement for everyone to read: [19].

Like how I have said: there is no room for speculations and assumptions about the opposite: it is crystal clear that Greece got EU's support on Imia and none can question it. Whoever does not accept the facts, and turns a blind eye to the sources, then, I can't help but wonder if they are following any notorious personal agendas here. The content which Future Perfect has removed from the Lead, should be restored back, given the reliable and strong sources backing it. And to avoid any future misunderstandings and removals of the said content, we should cite it with all the new aforementioned sources from above. And if those aren't enough yet, I can provide even more of them, from portals and newspapers which were reporting on the Imia incidents, and which noted the EU's support to Greece on Imia dispute, like: [20]. The source here writes: "The European Parliament and the European Commission has continually supported Greece on the issue of Imia, and has warned Turkey on more than one occasion to refrain from using any sort of military operations against Greek sovereignty.".

Thing is, the sources are here. It is clear what FuturePerfect has to do here. He should revert his own revert and allow for the content to be returned to the page, as no one can question the EU's support to its member states anymore.

EDIT: to clarify about the latest source, it also refers to Wikipedia as one of its source, -not only Hurriyet Daily news and archives- which means that it either refers to content before it was removed by Future Perfect, either to the archived documents and statements of the EU which I have provided both in the article and here in the talk. In either case, they are more than enough already and I hope this helps. Everyone here has my thanks for their patience to read this, and I wish everyone have a good day. -- SILENTRESIDENT 23:34, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

New sources from the Talk have been added, the removed sentence has been restored, and the citation and coding errors in other sources have been addressed. If there is anything else, let me know. Have a good day. -- SILENTRESIDENT 13:48, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

[21] I think this source is enough to solve the dispute between the editors. It is from the Publications Office of the European Union and it clearly shows that EU backed Greece on this matter. Gre regiment (talk), 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for digging out the source text, but the source is rather irrelevant to the matter at hand. It shows that the EU Parliament backed Greece rather unambiguously and quickly – but that much was never in dispute and we were already citing the fact. But the thing is, the EU Parliament is not "the EU". The EU is a highly complex thing with many competing institutions, and the Parliament is not the one that defines the EU's foreign policy. Still today, the Parliament has little direct say in foreign matters, and back in 1996 it had even less. Our article on the European Parliament rightly describes its role in these matters as that of a "pan-Euopean soapbox" that can only act via non-binding resolutions. That's actually why its voice on foreign matters is so often a lot more unambigous and seeminly strongly opinioned than the measures taken by those bodies that actually have the decision-making power: unlike the latter, the Parliament can afford to make strongly opinioned announcements, because they have no consequences. – So, in effect, sure, the Parliament resolution is a notable thing to mention here, but it is extremely misleading to present it as if it defined the stance of "the EU" as such. It simply didn't. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:47, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

(P.S.: Of course the source link is still good to use. We were already citing the same text not only once, but twice, via two different mirrors, at least one of them of decidedly low quality (thanks to a certain editor messing up the footnotes), but it will certainly be an improvement if we replace those links with the official one on the EU site. It should be the English-language version though [22], not the Greek one you provided. (Somehow the text doesn't display properly for me right now; maybe somebody could fix that?) Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:54, 4 February 2017 (UTC))

Now it is clear to me what you mean, but as far as i know there is no official or unofficial document or statement against the European Parliaments resolution neither from the European Commission nor from the European Council and this shows that they were also agreed on that. But if you think that instead of EU we should use the term European Parliament, I am ok with that. (P.S.: The link has the English version of the resolution.) Gre regiment (talk) 18:35, 4 February 2017 (UTC))

I am very grateful for your assistance, Gre regiment. Since it is the EU that backed Greece with both statements, documents and resolutions through its various institutions, like EU Parliament and the EU Comission, and even individual EU countries such as Germany, Italy and Cyprus whose the governments all called on Turkey to respect Greek sovereignty (the most recent was by German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier who very recently, on December 4, 2016 backed Greece on its spat with Turkey for border treaties: [23] ) and since none within the EU ever opposed the Greek position, it is safe to say that the European Union, both through its institutions and through its individual member states, supported Greece's sovereignty and borders as defined by the treaties. -- SILENTRESIDENT 16:55, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

More precise about Italian position on the Imia dispute

I have restored the previous sentence [24] as it is better to just quote the italian position, to minimize any possible room for misconceptions about the Italian government's position. Italy did not state that the protocol is just "valid" but "valid and continuous to be valid", meaning that it was not only valid at that moment, but continuously valid. -- SILENTRESIDENT 17:01, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

There is no advantage in doing so. "Being valid" and "continuing to be valid" mean exactly the same thing. The repetition is merely a means of rhetorical emphasis on the part of the Italian politician – which is fine in the context of political language, but devoid of any additional information value for an encyclopedia. The only effect of repeating this rhetorical figure here in our own language would be to give the statement extra loudness – which may seem attractive to you, because you evidently like to trumpet things out to the reader at maximum volume if they are sympathetic to your POV, but that's not the way serious encyclopedia authors write. Literal quotations have a place in good encyclopedic writing only where the details of somebody's wording are of genuine interest and a paraphrase can't render the nature of the utterance adequately. This is clearly not the case here: the Italians said that in their opinion the agreement was valid; there's nothing open to "misconceptions" about this very simple proposition.

The second disadvantage of using the literal quotation in this instance is that cumbersome orthographical error and the "sic". The problem is that so far we can only quote the thing second-hand, from two sources that were both written by non-native speakers of English and which may well have copied from each other, so we simply don't know whether the Italian minister produced that orthographical/grammatical error himself or whether it slipped in through the reporting by these intermediate sources. By reproducing the error and marking it with "sic", we are effectively claiming the minister produced it, which may very well be a false claim. This is clearly not a satisfactory situation, but it is extremely easy to avoid, by simply doing what responsible encyclopedic writing would prefer to do anyway: paraphrase. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:40, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Nope they do not mean the same thing, I am afraid. Why do you think Italy ever felt the necessity to mention the same word twice in the same phrase if it really means the same thing? You have removed the addition on the ground that it is "crumbersome" and yet without providing a valid explanation on why information from sources, although can be summarized in our own words, should that be done at the expense of original word choices and in an way that differs from the meaning of the original statement (i.e. continuous validity)? Please see WP:INTEXT. -- SILENTRESIDENT 23:10, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Like I said before: misunderstanding of italy's statement is very likely here, like you have done for yourself where you have misunderstood that in diplomacy the words "valid" and "continuously valid" as meaning absolutely one and the same thing. I am not an expert in diplomacy, but in diplomacy, words carry weight. Even words that may seem repetitive to one's eyes, may actually mean something. Hence why I recommend that instead of replacing this with our own words/impressions of what the statement said, this is left on the readers to decide by themselves. -- SILENTRESIDENT 23:14, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

To soothe your concerns that the paragraph is "cumbersome", I have removed the second sentence from the phrase, although it escapes me why you find this paragraph too crumbersome for your tastes in the first place, since it hardly exceeds two lines. I hope this helps. -- SILENTRESIDENT 23:16, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

This is getting too idiotic to respond to. No, I'm reverting again, and I will continue to do so until you go away and stop butchering this article with your incompetence. I have no hope to reason with you, so I won't further try. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:00, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

When you said "Damn it" and "Fuck it" to me, I decided to ignore it and pretend it never happened. And I have advised you to be civil when talking to others. Nothing justifies such impoliteness and abusive behavior towards other editors, no matter the disagreements you may be having with them. I am asking very kindly as per WP:Civility that you strike or remove your latest uncivil response to me. Once this is done, we can sit down and work to see where the problem is exactly for you and find a compromise. -- SILENTRESIDENT 09:21, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Well, if you want to be treated with respect as an editor, you will need to learn to respect the work of others, at least to the point of making a serious attempt at understanding and responding to their arguments, which – like so often before – you again failed to do. If you truly can't do better, you should have the honesty to take the logical step and withdraw from editorial issues like these. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:35, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

"Respect the work of the others"? I shall remind you that it is you the one who is reverting or replacing other people's work on this article. This is not the first time you are doing this. You have reverted Dr. K's, mine, and other people's additions and edits to the page in the past when you don't like it. Wikipedia's rules are very clear here: No one, even you, has the right to act as though he is the owner of the article. I am urging, for a last time, that you change your pushing behavior and stop rewriting or fixing what the other editors add. Their work should be respected and you should rather only interfere to it when there is really a violation of Wikipedia's rules or when the sourced content is not reflecting what the source says. I have added new information to the article but you replaced it completely. What can I conclude now? My additions were was as closely attributed to what the source means, even taking special care to include the statement with quotations to preserve the original choice of words, but you changed / replaced them with something more ambiguous and generic that obscures the meaning of it! I do not agree with your approach. If you have problem quoting or closely attributing text from sources, then you should try for a compromise, not force your way.

But the only response I am getting from you is "No. Just no. Stop butchering this article.!" [25] and that I am "Incompetent" because I do not agree with your changes. -- SILENTRESIDENT 19:29, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

I very kindly am asking you to Strike or Remove your insulting and uncivil response to me. -- SILENTRESIDENT 19:35, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Your lack of will to work with me for a consensus, has disappointed me, Future Perfect. The quotation with the original chosen keywords has been restored. And unless you prove to me that it does violate Wikipedia's rules, it will stay. You don't have to like it for it to stay - if you continue with this unacceptable behavior, I will have no other option but to call for the attention of third parties. I am tired when I see certain editors believing that they own the pages and can dictate the others on what they can added and how. Wikipedia is developed through collaboration and consensus, not through such attitudes. -_- Have a good day. -- SILENTRESIDENT 16:43, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Feel free to escalate this into any dispute resolution process you choose – as long as it isn't one that would involve the two of us trying to convince each other, because yes, I have no patience left to try to "work with you", and I will refuse to treat you as a bona fide contributor to be taken seriously in discussion from now on. I have reverted your edit again, as it was reintroducing a (likely) factual falsehood about the wording of the quotation. The reasons are explained above; calling my removal "unexplained" as you did in your latest edit summary [26] is an impertinent, malicious lie. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:30, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

I asked for moderator's attention in the ANI over our heated disagreement, but the ANI says that there is nothing wrong in your statements, asides from your harsh language which the moderators believe is stemming from your frustration due to my inability to understand and accept your arguments. Furthermore they do not believe that paraphrasing the quotation constitutes censorship or whatever. In this case, I will no longer object to the information staying paraphrased. Have a good day. -- SILENTRESIDENT 02:32, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Maps?

Why is there only map of Greece in the infobox? If the island disputed between two countries, Turkish map must be there. Otherwise, its may not seem very objective. Thanks. 88.246.28.4 (talk) 22:27, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

It doesn't matter at all which country is shown in that map. It's a locator map; what matters is that the reader is given an idea where this place is geographically. For this reason, the best thing is to have a map that shows it in relation to the sea it is part of, the Aegean. It just so happens that a map of the Aegean will naturally show the shape of Greece or almost all of it, since the country is just so closely intertwined with the sea. Turkey is simply too large; if you had a map with the whole of Turkey, the necessary details in the Aegean would become far too small. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:43, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

It does matter that the rightful owner of the islands is displayed on the infobox. De jure, the islands are Greece's, de facto, are disputed. To replace the map, and to erase anything pre-1996 information from the infobox just because Turkey claims so since 1996, is POV. Doing so, not only ignores the reality and the position of the international community on this, but adopts 100% the Turkish view, and Wikipedia is supposed to be neutral. As if it isn't the infobox already biased enough (the info about the Kalymnos Administration has been removed from the infobox in spite of sources backing it) and Greece was demoted from de jure "owner" to mere "claimant". -- SILENTRESIDENT 11:40, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia needs take no sides on the Imia/Kardak dispute

May I ask why the Infobox is reflecting the Turkish position on the status of the Imia/Kardak islets? I mean, the infobox (map aside) is currently adopting the Turkish point of view on the dispute, in that the islands are of disputed sovereignty (aka "gray zones"), a view not supported by the Int. community or any other countries in the world (not counting Greece since Greece is the opposite side in that dispute). Furthermore, no political analysts, int. law experts and third party governments besides Turkey do acknowledge the validity of the Turkish claims; in fact, the analysts assert the view that the Turkish claims are constantly changing and expanding beyond any point that could give them any credibility. It is true that Turkey didn't dispute the Imia islets prior to the 1960s, the Istanbul Pogrom and the Cyprus crisis, and it is also true that after the 1996 incident, it started laying parallel claims on about 4 more islands, a number which in the recent years has dubiously has grown to 8, then 14, and even 200 islands (depending which Turkish politician/official you are quoting/referring to). Not every one of these Greek islands are uninhabited and as small as Imia, - some of them are in fact quite large and inhabited).

It astonishes me that the Turkish claims not only are adopted into the Infobox, but also, as a NPOV violation, this has not been tackled for such a long time thus far, and in spite of the majority-held view that Turkish claims not only lack any credibility, but are the result, not of any territorial disagreements emanating from the first half of 20th Century, but of a revisionist policy adopted by Turkey in the second half of the 20th century, (a well-documented fact, with numerous sources available on internet about it) which is not always limited to words but also is followed by actions (such as the 1996 crisis). This, however, as a policy, has escalated further and at unprecedented levels (the current Turkish President even questioned the Lausanne Treaty which defined the modern boundaries between Greece and Turkey, drawing not only strong condemnation from the Greek side, but also criticism from other countries, including Germany and Russia). Wikipedia, instead of tacking the Turkish claims from a neutral point of view and being just that: claims, it has adopted the Turkish view on Imia, and as result it has demoted Greece to the position of claimant, the same position as Turkey!

I am not here to analyze the validity of Turkey's claims on the Aegean islands, but to bring attention on how Wikipedia has adopted these territorial claims and has flagged the particular islets as "Disputed" even though none else besides Turkey shares these views. What is more problematic is that these claims are reflected on the island article about Imia instead of being reflected on an article about the dispute. Instead of creating a new, separate article dedicated to that Imia dispute, we see this being tackled on the Imia article even though it is well known that the 1996 incident on Imia is not just an isolated case about the very islets themselves, but are part of a broader dispute which involves the Turkish claims on sovereignty of other Greek islands, such as Agathonisi (where the Turkish European Affairs Minister Omer Celik, 1 week ago, made a statement in which Agathonisi is declared a Turkish territory) and all these relate to the Aegean Sea (see Aegean dispute). I have of course heard the argument that the "Disputed" flagging was displayed on the Infobox, because of the circumstances of the 1996 crisis, in which Turkey has recorded legal rights on the islands by force (by having its military landing on one of the two Imia islets), which frankly is a very very poor argument to justify the Turkish POV on the article.

Wikipedia is supposed to take a neutral position to the issue. As per WP:NPOV, the articles must not take sides, but should explain the sides, fairly and without editorial bias, and without implying or declaring the islets's status as disputed, either through the article's main body of through the article's infobox, just because a minority view, the Turkish view, says so. As everyone here knows, the Turkish side wants the islets to be determined as gray zones and be flagged as disputed, and currently, this is exactly how the Infobox portrays them.

My proposal is to create a new article, the Imia Islets sovereignty dispute and move anything about the Turkish claims there, (including the 1996 crisis that brought the two countries to the brick of war), and here only to keep what information we know about these islets themselves (i.e. administrative info, geographical info, geological, wild life, fishing period, etc). It will still fall under WP:NOTABILITY so I don't think that could be a problem. --SILENTRESIDENT 19:24, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Very good proposal and I fully agree. I wonder how this POV issues remain still unresolved.Alexikoua (talk) 09:43, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

No, you're not going to make the "disputed" status go away by shipping the issue off into a POV-forked new article. You are also not going to make the article more NPOV by simply adopting the view of the Greek side as the only serious one – which is what your proposal boils down to. You are also not going to improve this article by reducing it to the bare geographical information minus the dispute – that would mean stubbing it down to the first four sentences of the current intro. There's simply nothing more to be said about these rocks than that (I'll challenge you to find a single reliable source that has described them under any other perspective independent of the dispute, ever).

As for labelling the islands as "disputed", that is undoubtedly what they are. Greece and Turkey are making conflicting claims about their sovereignty status, hence there is a dispute (which you yourself have acknowledged, or how else are you going to justify an article about the sovereignty dispute if there isn't a dispute?) If there is a dispute, the islands are disputed. That's what "disputed" means, nothing else. They are just as disputed as Hans Island, Perejil Island, Liancourt Rocks, Greater and Lesser Toonbs and all the rest. It is still our task to simply describe this state of affairs, and we're going to give both the Turkish and the Greek claim the exact same amount of weight, as long as there's nothing in the reliable sources that would allow us to discount one of them as irrelevant fringe. I'd be the first to agree to rewrite the article if there was solid sourcing supporting the idea that a widespread consensus of international observers finds the Turkish claim as baseless and absurd as I personally think it objectively is, but since our sources do not make that call, we can't do it either. This should be obvious to any competent Wikipedia editor; there really is nothing more to debate here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:05, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

And in case some people still haven't grasped it, "disputed" is not the same as "grey zone". I think I have explained this here previously but it bears repeating: "disputed" simply means there is a dispute (which there undeniably is), so it's perfectly neutral and appropriate to use. Calling the islands a "grey zone", in contrast, would imply the actual claim that the sovereignty is objectively in an indeterminate state (i.e. it wasn't fixed by the relevant treaties). That, unlike "disputed", would indeed be very much a non-neutral claim and would be "adopting the Turkish position". But, needless to say, we aren't doing that here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:41, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

To begin, I absolutely agree there is a sovereighnty dispute over Imia islets, Future Perfect. But my concerns here are not about the dispute itself, but about the NPOV presentation of it.

The problem here is not the dispute between the Republics of Greee and Turkey. Is that there is POV, either intentional (I hope not), or coincidental, depending how you view it) due to the fact that the dispute is tackled from within the current island article (instead of being given its own article, an article dedicated to the 1996 and post-1996 events), and due to the way that dispute is presented on the article's infobox which, frankly, gives the false impression that Wikipedia has adopted the Turkish POV.

Let me explain by bringing an example: the term "DISPUTED" on the infobox is used to denote that there is a dispute between the two countries over the islets, but this happens to coincide with the well-known Turkish POV: the Turkish side maintains that the status of the islets is disputed (Turkish: ihtilaf) and the infobox also uses the same term in english: "DISPUTED". This, despite the other side (i.e. Greek side) and the int. community not agreeing with this view. Do you see the problem here? We have a case where Wikipedia is trying to be neutral, but the way the dispute is presented in Wikipedia's article, coincides with the Turkish POV. To an unexperienced editor, it should look like as if Turkey disputes a foreign country's islets and this is adopted by Wikipedia by displaying the "DISPUTED" on the islets infobox (even though this is not true).

Another similar problem we have on the present article, Future Perfect, is that the Turkish side holds the view that the islets are not owned by anyone, and the Turkish government accuses Greece for allegedly CLAIMING the islets for herself. Note: according to that Turkish POV, Greece does not OWN them, but merely CLAIMS them (a fact which the Greek government denies). However, in the infobox, the dispute is displayed like this:

CLAIMED BY:

Greece

------

Turkey

I am not saying Wikipedia intented to adopt the Turkish POV, just I am saying how all these coincide with the Turkish views and how this is troubling me. Franlkly, you can try explain why this happens, (you can in fact blame the infobox code for not adapting to the complications of the said dispute for displaying them this way, or you can say that the similarity of the Infobox with the Turkish POV just a coincidence and nothing more! You can argue that the Infobox is neutral but it is not). But no matter how you see it, as it stands now, the infobox clearly looks like as it is pushing a certain POV to the readers who visit the article, one which does not reflect the neutral, (i.e. majority) view on the dispute.

Wikipedia is very clear on that: editors must make sure that a neutral point of view is maintained on the disputes, and if there is any POV content in an article, it should always be presented and attributed fairly and in a NPOV way that takes in account the other sides in the dispute. As per WP:NPOV, the ideal for the infobox could mean to show Turkey as claimant, and Greece as owner of the islets. However, given how inflexible the infobox's coding is, currently this can't happen.

Furthermore, the fact that Turkish claims on the Greek islets are present are dominating the island article instead of being tackled on their own separate article (i.e. Imia sovereignty dispute) only can be POV pushing, for the same reasons as to add the Turkish claims on other Aegean islands such as Agathonisi, on the Agathonisi article instead of the Aegean dispute article. This led me to the conclusion that the Imia article should only maintain info about the said Greek islands, while a new article to be created, the Imia sovereighnty dispute, and to which the dispute's content should be moved. I believe this is the best possible way in tackling these aforementioned issues and in accordance with WP:NPOV. --SILENTRESIDENT 11:04, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Well, it seems you haven't learned anything since 2012, when you first started writing pretty much the same rants on this talkpage. As I said, I am no longer taking you seriously as a bona fide contributor, so I'm not going to explain these things to you yet another time. If you continue creating disruption here, it will be time for you to get banned at last. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:14, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

You are dangerously crossing the WP:THREATEN and WP:IDONTLIKEIT lines here. Be careful. If you feel you can't participate in a civilized discussion, if you can't be polite for once, then back off and take a break.

EDIT: I doubt you have ever seen me as a bona fide editor, as much as I doubt your personal definition of the word "bona fide", given your problematic judgement and your hostile tone towards me and a number of other editors which has been criticized in the past as being harsh and uncivil. Like I said: I am used to hear the insults of a biased admin who was accused in the past for abusing his powers and nearly lost them. I am not expecting any better from you even though I am trying. At least I am trying. But, you coming here nevertheless, keeping up this WP:OWN attitude (assuming others of not being bona-fid / of being bad faith editors, being uncivil towards them, and threatening them when they couldn't agree with your views, is crossing the lines WP:OWNERship), trying to diminish my concerns for being mere rants, and WP:INTIMIDATEing me, shows that this is a waste of time from my part. --SILENTRESIDENT 11:22, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Infoboxes aren't always perfect and sometimes they can't present a neutral summary of the article. However, the fact that we are here presenting the typical Turkish pov from the very beginning of the article raises serious questions. According to this rationale we should add the disputed area box on half the Aegean islands.Alexikoua (talk) 13:02, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

New source article

Just for later reference, I just saw this recent article in Le Monde diplomatique [27]. Some interesting comments there; among other things it's among the first reliable outside observer's comments I've seen that unequivocally endorses the Greek legal position on Imia (calling it "unassailable"). Will have a look later what we can do with it. (As an aside, I particularly like it how they stole my own map from this article... ;-) – Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:53, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

That is excellent. But I am afraid the problem in the article is not about sources, is about NPOV due to the article focusing too much on the dispute and the infobox coinciding with the Turkish POV. I really pray that you could remake your opinion and allow us to separate the current article into 2 articles: one for Imia and one for Imia Sovereignty Dispute. The Imia Sovereignty Dispute article creation will help us alleviate some of the focus on the dispute from the current article, and also will allow us to avoid the use of the problematic infoboxes (which I am sure, judging from your past experiences with infobox battles, and your personal hate for infoboxes, is a better alternative to the current). To clarify: when I am suggesting to "move" the dispute's content from the present article to the new, I mean a clean copy-paste, and 100% preservation of the current text without any changes done to it (and to include the new source you found of course). --SILENTRESIDENT 14:15, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

I remain vehemently opposed to that. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:19, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Future Perfect, I noticed how the Le Monde Diplomatique source you posted here also mentions of an incident with a Turkish diplomat and this reminded me of a similar case that was reported on a different source found by me half year ago. In that source, an incident between the Italian Government and a Turkish diplomat was reported. Precisely, the Italian government contacted a high-ranked Turkish diplomat working at the Turkish Foreign Ministry during the period of the Imia crisis, and expressed to him Italy's dissatisfaction for Turkey's stance on Imia, but the Turkish diplomat allegedly never transferred the Italian government's message to then Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Ciller. According to that source, PM Ciller not receiving the Italian government's message didn't prevent the escalation of the crisis for which the Italian government hoped. Since I never found how to use that source here on the Imia article, I never bothered citing it, but if you are interested on it, I can try and find it for you. --SILENTRESIDENT 15:49, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

I remember reading a similar claim some time ago [28], and I think I have mentioned it on this page sometime too. A columnist for the (relatively liberal) Turkish newspaper Radikal, Ismet Berkan, claimed that when the Italian government forwarded some critical information to the Turkish government (presumably something that, in their view, was evidence of the Turkish side considering the 1932 protocol valid at the time), people in the Turkish foreign ministry deliberately failed to forward the message to their head, foreign minister Baykal (and through him, to Çiller). Berkan was specifically blaming a diplomat named Onur Öymen for this. I find the story interesting and plausible, but it didn't sound as if Berkan had actual proof of his allegations, so I'm not convinced we can really use much of it. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:07, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Yep, Onur Öymen was the name of the diplomat. Even though it was an interesting story, it has little to no use here. --SILENTRESIDENT 03:55, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

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False distances cited?

I think there may be some intentionally false distances cited in the article. I'm not Greek/Turkish, just wandered to the topic by chance, read the article, did some measuring on Google Maps. By my measurements from closest shore point to closest shore point , the West Isle of Imia/Kardak is about 3.48 km/1.88 nmi) from the closest Greek island of Kalylimnos, and the East Isle of Imia/Kardak is about 4.19 km/2.26 nmi) from Cavus Adasi, the closest Turkish island. This sides pretty solidly with the Greek view/general rule on territories that the one with the closest other territorial shore is the one who should have sovereignty, i.e. the West Isle is closer to Greece and by extension as the East Isle is closer to the West Isle than Turkey, it's also Greek (the Treaty of Lausanne argument is separate from this general rule regarding sovereign territory everywhere in the world). And actually, the distance from the closest point on Kalylimnos to the furthest point on Imia/Kardak is still also only 3.98 km/2.15 nmi, but that's besides the point.

I noted a section of the article which cited a new piece from Turkey saying they're building a watch tower on Cavus Adasi, claiming it was "only one mile" away from Imia/Kardak, which is patently false as per the above measurements, and is potentionally intentional misinformation by those with a pro-Turk stance on the issue. I changed that to "slightly over 2 nautical miles", which quickly received a citation needed tag, which I agree with. I realize that Google Maps isn't a great source to cite, and was considering where to find e.g. a nautical chart or some other such source to cite. However, the CN tag was removed, as was the entire mention of the distance in that sentence, with the comment "no need to sweat over whether it's more like one mile or two miles". While I think it's better not to mention the exact distance than keep a false distance in the article, I would argue that the distance is very relevant here, especially if it is/was being intentionally under- or overreported. If we can't keep simple geographic facts straight, that's a huge issue IMO.

Now, that part of the article may be ok, but the very first paragraph is still problematic:
Imia (Greek: Ίμια) or Kardak is a pair of small uninhabited islets in the Aegean Sea, situated between the Greek island chain of the Dodecanese and the southwestern mainland coast of Turkey. They lie 5.5 nautical miles (10.2 km; 6.3 mi) east of the Greek island, Kalymnos, 2.5 nmi (4.6 km; 2.9 mi) southeast of the Greek islet, Kalolimnos, and 3.8 nmi (7.0 km; 4.4 mi) west of the coast of the Turkish peninsula of Bodrum. Their total surface area is 10 acres (4.0 ha).

As I noted above, I believe the distance from Kalolimnos is actually under 1.9 nmi, i.e. it is underreported in the introductory paragraph. The distance from Turkey, however, is also underreported, as their closest islet is about 2,25 nmi away. It seems like an attempt to undermine the Greek claim by saying that the closest unquestionably Greek "island" is further away than the Turkish mainland, and being dismissive towards Kalolimnos as a mere "islet" despite Kalolimnos also being inhabited (by two people, but still) and having an old lighthouse and permanent garrison. Meanwhile, the closest Turkish island/islet of Cavus Adasi does not seem to have been inhabited (I was unable to find concrete information) prior to the construction of the watchtower. Basically, I think someone trying to back the Turkish claim has edited the intro to say "The Turkish mainland is closer to these islets than any "proper" Greek island, that small island you have significantly closer than the Turkish mainland doesn't count, and Turkey also has a smaller island closer to Imia/Kardak than our mainland, but I'm not going to mention it because it's slightly farther from Imia/Kardak than Kalolimnos is... and maybe I'll also write that Kalolimnos is further away from then than it really is, just in case."

Jesihvone (talk) 11:29, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Addendum: I decided to add citation needed tags to all the distances and the area of the islets (pending finding a proper map for a citable source, rather than just Google Maps), while also fixing the distance to Kalolimnos from 2.5 nmi to a more proper 1.9 nmi, and also adding the distance to Cavus Adasi. I also think the distances to Kalymnos and the Turkish mainland are slight overestimates, 5.5 nmi and 3.8 nmi vs. my measured figures of 5.3 nmi and 3.6-3.7 nmi, but since they were both overestimates and by so little, I didn't change them yet. Forgot to include that Imia/Kardak are west of Cavus Tadasi (the direction is mentioned for the other points of reference), but that can wait until a later edit. I considered a POV tag, but I think the rest of the article is reasonably neutral, although possibly not perfect.

Jesihvone (talk) 11:56, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't quite remember where those measurements originally came from, but I think I still have some official Turkish pamphlet from the time of the crisis that gives measurements like these. I'd consider them pretty uncontroversial. I'll have to correct you on one count: there isn't really any such rule "that the one with the closest other territorial shore is the one who should have sovereignty", and to the best of my knowledge neither side has proposed any official argument on such a basis, so there isn't really that much of a potential POV baggage to the precise measurements as you suspected. The only legal argument that depends on exact measurement is the Greek position that three miles from the Turkish mainland constitutes a cut-off point under the Lausanne treaty, and nobody has denied the fact that they are outside of that line. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:51, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

I would suggest you go have a look on Google Maps yourself, there's an built-in measuring feature that's easy to use. The 2.5 nmi for the distance from Kalolimnos is clearly past Imia/Kardak, and the "only one mile" bit from Imia/Kardak to Cavus Tadasi was even more blatantly false. A Turkish government pamphlet from the time of the crisis is precisely the kind of source one might expect to have some "fudging" of the numbers, in the case, exaggerating the distance to the Kalolimnos, which works in favour of their own claim. I agree that the distances are besides the point for the Treaty of Lausanne, as I mentioned in my initial comment. I may also have mixed up the rules for determining territorial waters (if an area would fall within the area of 2 or more countries due to their shores being close enough together, the border is considered to be midway between their closes shore points), and the rules might indeed be different for islands. Jesihvone (talk) 12:59, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Just for the record, the booklet I mentioned gives the distances as follows: 3.6 nm to Turkish mainland (from eastern islet), 2.2 nm to Çavus, 5.4 to Kalimnos (from western islet); no measurement given for Kalolimnos. The figures match your measurements fairly well. The absence of a figure for Kalolimnos, undoubtedly the nearest other object, does of course speak to some bias, though it's somewhat logical, as the official Turkish position expressed in the booklet obviously considers Kalolimnos itself as equally "gray" as Imia, thus not a relevant point of reference. The figures we were quoting are within one decimal fraction of these, so possibly just a matter of different rounding. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:18, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Addendum: the unsourced and slightly exaggerated measurement for Kalolimnos was introduced in [29] back in 2006 and has been sitting in the article ever since. Incidentally this was done by a contributor with a clearly pro-Greek POV, so it's unlikely it was exaggerated on purpose. That edit dit skew the article a bit in favour of emphasizing closeness to Greece though, because while introducing the nearest Greek point, it omitted the nearest Turkish one (Cavus). Before that, we only had the two nearest major/inhabited reference objects, i.e. Kalimnos and the Turkish mainland. I guess we should either give both Kalolimnos and Cavus, or neither. Finally, the "1 mile" measurement for Cavus (further down in the text) was introduced quite recently [30] and was taken straight out of an erroneous statement in the source, a news article. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:06, 23 June 2018 (UTC)