Turkey revisits island status in UN letter

The allegations that the demilitarization of the islands of the east Aegean and the Dodecanese, from Samothraki to Kastellorizo, is a condition for Greece’s sovereignty over them are reiterated by Turkey’s permanent representative to the UN, Feridun Sinirlioglu, in a letter to the United Nations on September 17.

The Turkish diplomat said Ankara’s claim that the demilitarization of the islands is an inviolable condition of their cession to Greece under the Lausanne and Paris treaties (1923 and 1947 respectively).

The claims have been rejected in their entirety in the last letter of Greece’s permanent representative to the UN, Maria Theofili, last May.

In his letter, Sinirlioglu claimed that Greece is threatening the stability of the territorial regimes agreed to in the Lausanne and Paris Peace treaties.

Violation of the demilitarization conditions of these terms, he stated, could pose a threat to international security.

Sinirlioglu’s letter first challenges the Greek view of the “establishment of permanent borders” under the Lausanne and Paris treaties as “oversimplified.” Furthermore, he claims that the correct interpretation of Articles 14 (1) and 14 (2) of the Paris Treaty and Articles 12 and 13 of the Lausanne Treaty is that the cession of territory was made subject to the fundamental limitation on Greece’s territorial sovereignty: the demilitarization of the disputed islands.

Sinirlioglu also claimed that both Limnos and Samothraki are included in the demilitarization regime, disconnecting them from the 1936 Montreux Convention regarding the Regime of the Turkish Straits.

Moreover, referring to the Paris Treaty on the Dodecanese, to which Turkey was not a signatory member, Sinirlioglu claims that the main objective was to “protect Turkey’s security.”

With regard to the Dodecanese, Sinirlioglu claims that Turkey has the right to challenge Greece’s sovereignty over them because since the 1960s, Greece’s militarization of these islands is in practical violation of its treaty obligations.