Turkish Defense Minister Rejects Greek Claim on 16 Aegean Islands

by Ioanna Zikakou - Mar 29, 2015


turkish-defense-ministerTurkish Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz rejected Greece’s territorial claim on 16 islands located in the Aegean Sea. He even called them “archipelago of Turkish islands,” fuelling the ongoing Aegean dispute.

“Greece only the current but temporary rule over EGAYDAAK and its administration there does not invalidate the fact that those islands are the territory of the Republic of Turkey,” he said in response to opposition MPs who questioned the Turkish government’s policies on the issue of Syria and the Aegean dispute.

Furthermore, he added that “Turkey has never given up its territorial claims over the islands, which were left outside the scope of islands given to Greece by Article 12 of the 1923 Lausanne Peace Treaty and by the 1947 Paris Treaty.”

The Turkish Defense Minister referred to the following 16 islands: Oinousses, Fournoi, Arkoi, Farmakonisi, Kalolimnos, Platia, Kyra Panagia, Gyali, Syrna and the eastern Mediterranean islets Gavdos, Dionisiades, Gaidouronisi and Koufonisi, located south of Crete.

“There is no doubt regarding the status of any island or islet in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean,” noted Greek Foreign Ministry spokesman Konstantinos Koutras.
- See more at: http://greece.greekreporter.com/2015/03/29/turkish-defense-minister-rejects-greek-claim-on-16-aegean-islands/#sthash.87DKQGbb.dpuf