For one more time, Ankara disputed the sea borders between Greece and Turkey. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu claimed late on Wednesday that the sea borders in the Aegean Sea were not clearly delineated.
“The sovereignty of some islands and rocky islands and the sea borders around them in the Aegean Sea have not been set by any existing international agreement between Turkey and Greece, and it is true that due to this fact a series of problems arise”, Cavusoglu said at the Turkish Parliament in response to a question about the status of 18 islands and one rocky islet submitted by a lawmaker of the Kemalist Republican opposition.
“Since 1996, our ministry has announced its views on the problems of the Aegean Sea and will not allow a fait accompli in geographically unidentified geographic formations, and any actions that will create any legal fait accompli,” Cavusoglu added. He noted that since Erdogan’s party came to power “nothing has changed in the Aegean status.
Thursday morning Cavusoglu claimed that the lifting of visas of Turkish citizens who want to travel to EU may be on the agenda of the Turkey-EU summit in Varna, Bulgaria, on March 26th.
However, on the even of Varna summit, President Erdogan slammed the EU on the Migration deal with Turkey, calling on Brussels to transfer 3 billion euros to be spent on Syrian refugees directly and without any delay.
““We will put all the pictures [of refugee camps in Turkey] in front of them during the [Turkey-] EU Summit in Varna. We will them: ‘If you are going provide the financial assistance for refugees, then do so. If not, be honest with us. You are invited to visit all the refugee camps. Don’t keep delaying it; give us the money,’” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in Ankara on March 19.
PS Of course, there are borders in the Aegean Sea which are very clearly delineated. Turkey is limited to 3 nautical miles from its shore. The rest are baseless claims.
