Turkey’s continually mounting aggressiveness in the Aegean is viewed by analysts in Athens as a possible prelude to a military clash designed by Ankara to achieve its longstanding aim of dragging Greece to the bargaining table to negotiate the sovereignty of dozens of islets and rock islets in the Aegean.

These are mostly islands not cited by name in international treaties, and which Ankara has defined as “grey zones”, or of indeterminate sovereignty, ever since the 1996 Imia crisis, which brought the two countries to the brink of war.

Greece counters that the 1947 Treaty of Paris transfers to Greece from Italy not only the Dodecanese islands, but all surrounding and adjacent islets.

Greek officials, therefore, are concerned that Ankara may want to design and stage an “Imia II” crisis.

According to a report in the weekend edition of the daily Ta Nea, Ankara considers 18 Greek islands and 150 rock islands as grey zones, in order to negotiate with Greece a redrawing of the map of the Aegean, as set by 20th century international treaties, beginning with the Lausanne Treaty.
The incident yesterday in which Turkey demanded a change of course of a Greek Chinook helicopter carrying the Greek Army Chief of Staff, Alcibiades Stefanis, the commander of the Supreme Domestic and Island Command, and a total of 16 high-level officers, was indicative of the Ankara’s escalation of aggression.
When the Greek Chinook was on its way from Rhodes to another Greek island, Ro, near the island of Kastelorizo and the Turkish Coast, Turkish radars zeroed in on the Greek helicopter and requested that it change course, erroneously stating that it was in Turkey’s FIR (flight information region).
During the return of the Greek military top brass from Ro to Rhodes, a pair of Turkish fighter jets shadowed the Chinook at a distance of a mere 2,000 feet, until they engaged in a fierce dog fight with two Greek fighter jets and left the area.

in.gr

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