Talk:Aegean dispute/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Article move?

Hi, I'm thinking of doing some rewrite/expansion on this article some time in the future. Before I get seriously started, I thought I'd get some feedback for a page move I'd propose: change Aegean crisis to Aegean conflict (or Aegean dispute perhaps?) "Crisis", in the proper sense of the word, refers to a single short, dramatic event, but the Aegean problem we're dealing with here is in reality a long-standing, lingering problem more or less stable over several decades. So, "crisis" simply doesn't fit. Also, I guess this would remove the awkwardness of attributing the whole term to one side alone, as it's now stated ("a term coined by the Greek government" etc.). I'm not sure that "crisis" is really a term only the Greek side has introduced, or even that it is the preferred term used by the Greek side, but "conflict", "dispute" or "problem" is certainly neutral enough that it fits WP:NPOV without any such hedging?

What do you guys think? Lukas 18:58, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I think a move is approporate. and article needs to be expanded greatly, this should be about all issues between Turkey and Greece. How about merging it to Greco-Turkish relations? --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 13:46, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd considered that too, but I think the complex of the Aegean issues is still so "self-contained", as it were, and at the same time so multi-faceted, that it can have an article of its own. The Greco-Turkish relations now deal with a lot of history, starting from the Ottoman era and the War of Independence, and there's still the Cyprus issue, the minorities, the EU, the PKK - lots of topics for the other article to deal with. -- You may have noticed I recently re-worked Imia/Kardak quite radically, and that alone is quite big too. In this page here, we should treat:

* Territorial waters (6 vs. 12 nm.)

* Airspace (6 vs. 10 vs. 12 nm.)

* FIR delimitation (middle or east of Aegean)

* FIR significance for military flights

* Continental shelf

* Demilitarized status of islands

* "Grey zones" (might be factored out of Imia/Kardak and moved here.

Lukas 13:58, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Expanding the article would be great, as the Aegean Crisis (or whatever we wish to call it) is a rather obscure fact to most media, and even to Greeks and Turkish people themselves, as the national media generally offer their own versions of the facts. E.g., being Greek, the version I hear most is that Greece is "poor and misunderstood" about the issue by everyone, including NATO itself, and that Turkey diminisces the whole matter in a condescending kind of way, more or less stating that "it exists only in our little worried Greek minds" :-). The crisis/dispute DOES exists, and it has led to contraddictions within NATO e.g. can a NATO country (Turkey) attack another NATO country (Greece) as it has often threatened to do so? Can a NATO country shoot down "enemy" planes of another NATO country for allegedly violating their own airspace, without consequences? The Aegean Crisis (or whatever...) really deserves a separate and very comprehensive article (I only created it long ago hoping it would eventually be expanded, but until now there was quite a lack of constructive feedback). Regarding who coined the name: all Turkish governments to date deny that there's any real "crisis" or "dispute", and that it's a kind of collective hysteria in Greece, so I don't know what the official Turkish or NATO name for the matter is. As a side note, "Aegean crisis" (Κρίση στο Αιγαίο) was also the name of an old Greek strategy videogame (ca. 1995-1996), regarding the issue.

Uhm...about the page move...I'd say move it only if you discover what the official NATO term for it is (assuming that NATO doesn't take the matter as lightly as it seems) , and expand it to include not only general info but specific incidents with a bi-partisan view (Greek and Turkish). EpiVictor 16:44, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

New page title

Okay, here we go about a new page title. I checked "Aegean conflict": 140 GHits. "Aegean dispute": 9,390 GHits. Both are used in neutral, international scholarship, and informally by both Turkish and Greek sources. Counter to what EpiVictor wrote above, Turkish government sources are quite vocal about the existence of an "Aegean dispute". On the contrary, Greek government policy has sometimes tried to disparage the use of dispute (or presumably conflict, for that matter, too), like here:

"The only legitimate dispute that needs to be settled between Greece and Turkey in the Aegean is the delimitation of the Aegean continental shelf. […] Beyond this, all other matters at times termed 'Aegean disputes' by Turkey consist exclusively of arbitrary claims against Greek sovereignty put forth by Turkey" [1]

I'm not sure we can take that into account, though, at least not in the title. How are we to write an article if the topic of the article doesn't even exist? If we were to follow the Greek government on this, it would not be just a matter of replacing one term with another, it would be a matter of denying that the topic even exists. -- Question to EpiVictor: what, according to your feeling, is the most common Greek term? "Ζητήματα του Αιγαίου"? "Προβλήματα του Αιγαίου"? "Ζητήματα" ('issues') seems quite common, including in official sources and mainstream media. Would it be exceedingly unfair to translate "ζητήματα" as "disputes" here?

As for "official" NATO terminology, I found nothing, and I doubt it exists. However, sources close to, e.g., American politics or military freely use "dispute" too.

My own view is still that "dispute" is a neutral enough term and just fits the facts. If there wasn't a dispute, i.e. a set of seriously conflicting claims held by two sides, then we wouldn't be here talking about this. (The Greek view reported above is just a rhetorical trick, trying to re-define its own claims into some kind of self-evident default position.) - That said, I'd like to point out that I'm not going to be Greek-bashing over this article all the time. I do have a POV of my own, and it's probably fair to state that at the outset - it's actually pretty much pro-Greek, on most, though not all, the Aegean issues. Lukas 17:59, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd say to go with dispute then, seems neutral enough to me too. BTW, in Greece we don't usually refer to those facts under one name, but news generically refer to them like "Turkish activity in the Aegean" (quite mild), "Disturbances", up to "Turkish provocations in the Aegean", "Another provocative act by the Turks" etc. etc. I bet the Turkish use similar terms for us :-)

The term Aegean Crisis appears, indeed, a bit eschatological and is not used very often in mass media (well, except from that old video game title, and some military/defense magazines). Btw... "ζητήματα" sounds a bit too generic and bland, as it would imply other problems, not necessarily related to Greek-Turkish relations, while "crisis" or better "dispute" renders better both the nature and severity of the argument.

Other than that, "dispute" seems right because there are indeed disputed territories and borders involved, as well as connections with other interests and matters (e.g. during the Cyprus Reunification Referendum, at least Greek media reported an increased number of airspace violations and "provocative military manuevers" by part of the Turkish army, which render those "disputes", in fact, a subtle psychological tactic and a way to keep the opponent (us?) under alert. It's not uncommon to see in the news images of Greek fighter aircraft having missile-locked Turkish fighter aircraft during the so-called "virtual dogfights", at least on a weekly basis. EpiVictor 20:18, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay folks, then, let's do it. I made a start with a proposal for a new intro, and a set of section stubs for a structural outline. I also did the page move. Thanks to you both for the constructive comments, this looks as if it was going to be a good collaborative atmosphere. Lukas 20:44, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Source and POV flags

You may have noticed I've been putting up {{fact}} tags throughout the new sections. Please bear with me until I have an opportunity of digging out those sources, as I'm currently working partly from memory. As for CoolCat's {{POV}} tag, I'll leave it there for the moment -- CoolCat, just remove it any time when you're satisfied the article is moving in a good direction. Lukas 11:39, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Section on Greek settlement programmes

I'm including, for the time being, a short passage on Greek settlement programmes. This is from memory. I cannot for the life of me now find the relevant references, neither about what exactly the Greek programme was, nor about exactly what was said on the Turkish side and by whom. Unfortunately, most of the Turkish government's online publications made after the Kardak crisis have been taken offline (which is interesting in itself, actually.) - If anybody finds anything, I'd be grateful, otherwise we might have to pull that section.

Random assortment of Google references, for later use

• ^ Frank Brenchley (1990): Aegean and Cyprus: Aegean Conflict and the Laws of the Sea. Research Institute for the Study of Conflict & Terrorism. ISBN: 0948879394.
• ^ Andrew Wilson (1979): The Aegean dispute. International Institute for Strategic Studies. ISBN: 0860790304.

• ^ Tolga Bilgic, Petros Karatzas (2004): "The contraction in Greece-Turkey-EU triangle: Rapprochements at the edges." Online article
• ^ Stergios Arapoglou (2002): Dispute in the Aegean Sea: The Imia/Kardak crisis. Research thesis, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. Online version
• ^ Tozun Bahcheli, Theodore A. Couloumbis, Patricia Carley (1997): "Greek-Turkish Relations and U.S. Foreign Policy: Cyprus, the Aegean, and Regional Stability." (Peaceworks 17). United States Institute of Peace. Online paper
• ^ Yücel Acer: "Recent Developments and Prospect for Settlement of the Aegean Disputes Through Dialogue". The Journal of Turkish Weekly, 2005-03-05. Online article.

The crises today

The thing has really died down. And no NATO does not interfere with the relations between Greece and Turkey although neither Turkey nor Greece gotten involved in any hot wars either that prompted NATO interference.

The dispute is basicaly Greece and Turkey making demands to each other and neither side accepting in a nutshell. This article has abit too much greek pov I think. --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 00:10, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, about the Greek POV, could you be a bit more specific about what passages you'd like changed? - As for the conflict having "died down" and both sides just "making demands on each other", that's more or less the stuff for the last section that has yet to be filled in. In my perception, the conflict is still perceived as very much alive at least in Greek public opinion, and in Turkey there was a lot of media coverage as late as 2004 about the publication that outlined the "grey zones" claims. On the official, diplomatic level, the tactical stalemate of the 90s seems to have given way to a kind of gentlemen's agreement to not move. That was after, during the EU preparation, Turkey had come close to agreeing to Greece's old demand to go to court in The Hague, but then Greece under its new government made a last-minute U-turn and The Hague was cancelled. This was discussed in Greek media fairly extensively in 2004/05. And of course, the everyday issue of using daily statistics of Turkish flight activities as a kind of oracle to gauge the political stance of the Turkish military leadership is very much alive too. Lukas 09:54, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Firstly uncited stuff pending citation should not be there, it is mostly gossip generated because of the tentions. While yes that is the popular beliefs I dont find them encyclopedic. That however is just my pov. Perhaps all should be commented out untill citation.

This would mean that Greece would gain the economic rights to almost the whole of the Aegean. uncited info does not see citation. Any map can show that greek islans spawn through out the Agean I think.

Too many blue links.

Too many red links. Some red links are about a terminology I am not familiar with. A stub for these must be created for the confused masses.

after the Turkish occupation of Cyprus and various other aggressive acts committed by Turkey, re-armament is an act of legitimate self-defence. isnt npov. Ill leave it to your capable hands.

Greek islands in grey zones should have a Turkish name.

Cited sources. They all are from sources that are supporting the greek pov. "Turkish army denial of the violations" is a pov source me thinks. We want sources that are more netural form educational sources perhaps. --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 17:58, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay. Your points one by one:

(a) "uncited stuff pending citation": not gossips, that's from reliable sources I have here, in many cases the Turkish ones. As I said, I just have to dig out the exact references from my library, as I was working from memory, and I asked for a bit of patience. Only exception, as I said above, is the story about the settlement programme - and that one I put in basically in order to please the Turkish POV, because to the best of my memory Turkish sources were the only ones ever to raise that issue; a Greek POV would be that this was never an issue at all. I personally would have no problem about leaving this out.

(b) if by "uncited stuff" and "gossips" you mean the bits about Greek lake vs. Half the Aegean: just google for "Ege" and "Yunan gölü", or "το μισό Αιγαίο", and you'll see how pervasive these memes are. And yes, they are sometimes used by high-ranking politicians and government statements.

(c) "Greece would gain the economic rights": that's the crucial point within a Turkish argument. It's crucial for understanding why Turkey opposes the application of the "Law of the Sea" rules as being inequitable! Same for the info that Greek islands are scattered throughout the Aegean: the whole introductory paragraph about maritime zone divisions being inherently biased towards Greek interest is taken straight out of Turkish sources - it's crucial for their story; a Greek POV would be that this is totally irrelevant and general rules of international law just need to be applied without regard to the geographical pecularities of the area.

(d) I fail to see how the blue links would prejudice the reader towards one POV?

(e) The red links for consistent objector, res inter alios acta etc. are technical terms from international law. I'm not a studied expert in law, so I'm not in a position to write those articles, but for a few of these I actually filed a request for an article. These are crucial concepts in the legal debates here, and they get mentioned (and explained) in the relevant sources. In some instances, particularly about res inter alios acta, it's again most crucial for the Turkish argument (it explains why Turkey can rightfully say that the UN Law of the Sea Convention isn't binding to it).

(f) "after the Turkish occupation" etc.: that sentence is attributed to the Greek side as part of their argument. I can try to make the formulation clearer so as to make sure we aren't seen as endorsing it.

(g) Turkish names: okay, valid point. I have the list somewhere here. The articles of course have the Greek names as titles, as these are all undisputedly de facto Greek possessions, at least.

(h) Cited sources: the present reference section is a leftover of the old article, which was indeed biased and not very substantial. Most real references are currently listed in the Imia/Kardak article and some on this talk page here; I only didn't find the time to transfer them yet.

I hope this has made it clearer? Actually, I was under the impression I had been going out of my way to give the Turkish POV more than a fair share, as I knew I might be personally biased a bit towards the Greek one. I could understand that Greek readers might accuse me of bias now, so I'm a bit astonished at your reaction. Lukas 11:08, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

(a) & (b) I realise all that for living on greece (briefly) and turkey long enough. There are lots of ridiclous claims by both sides generaly spoken by politicians to win votes (how I see it) hence in the best interest of factual acuracy these need to be cited or stay commented out till citation (the cite template is ugly and makes rest of the article look ugly). I am not here to make claims either way, thats not my possition.

(c) Yea, it is a logical argument even greece partialy agrees (according to the article). I do not believe it is necesary to stress out about citation. Greece does not claim ownership of agean but reserves the right, in return Turkey retaliates by "airspace violations". Gotta love international politics :). If you however that peice of info is unacceptable, coment it out.

(d) Too many blue links. Has nothing to do with POV. It just is that same things are being linked to the point that the entier page is blue. Its just that there are too many links. I am making this as a general statement because I am not in a position to dictate which links should go. I think little comon sense can point out redundent links. (no need to link to aircraft when talking about airspace violations by aircraft its redundent thats all).

(e) I sympatise that but it is much better if you can briefly explain its meaning in one sentence by creating articles at the red links. It may not be perfect, definately better than nothing.

(f) yea endorsement is my primary concern, I bet Turs are sensative about that issue as much as Greeks.

(g) Well if a turk is reading about it they may look up for the turkish name thats why. It would be more encyclopedic that way. I do not think its worth to create articles about the majority of those islands as they are... umm too tiny to care about.

(h) Perhaps I was pointing out the obvious. It is an area we should improve on the long run.

Do not stress out for my suggestions. I am merely spitting out ideas from time to time. They all may not be good ideas but still are ideas. I have a feeling you like some of them :) --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 23:20, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Aegean dispute grey zones

An anonymous dynamic IP user has twice tried to destroy Category:Aegean dispute grey zones without peer review. This category was originally set up based on the information provided in this article. Here's my take on it. I am not disputing the de jure sovereignty of these islands—they are under the sovereignty of Greece. However, what I am disputing is the notion that there is no grey zones dispute at all, when this article (whose information I go by) clearly outlines the nature of the grey zones dispute. If Turkish academia were to completely withdraw such disputes, then maybe there would then be basis for dismantling the category as it would no longer be an active dispute. I categorize things to make them cleanly cross-referenceable for a variety of unique academic interests—this is certainly an interesting subject, isn't it? - Gilgamesh 18:36, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Gilgamesh, the reason i erased this category is that in fact it should not exist. Turkey and Turkish acandemia (first time i hear of that!) present a list of 5-6 Greek islands, out of the blue, and call it disputed grey zones. For the Greek government those claims are totally unacceptable. I dont think its right for an encyclopedia to "legalize" in a way such claims over sovereighty by presenting them. Imagine if, lets say Greece or any other country, suddenly presented the world with a list that stated that Hawai is a grey zone area. Would you write down as a Wikipedia editor that Hawai is a grey zone area or would you say that 'hey this guy is a total wacko'? Thanks. Regards.88.218.54.247 09:12, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

You seem to misunderstand the nature of the word "dispute." A dispute is precisely where two or more parties don't agree on an issue. The fact that the Greek government says there is no issue and Turkish academics say there is, represents a disagreement. See also Category:Disputed territories. In none of these cases does Wikipedia decide who is right—in all of these cases, it recognizes that the dispute merely exists. As for Hawaiʻi, its sovereign status is also disputed, and this dispute has even been recognized and addressed by the U.S. government when they apologized to Hawaiʻi for illegally annexing it—but it was just an apology, and nothing actually changed. - Gilgamesh 03:34, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Comments

Some comments about the article:

• The lead is informative, but looks to me a bit listy with all these bullets. Could we avoid them, and have 2-3 concise paragraphs summarizing the article per WP:LEAD?
• "The delimitation of exclusive economic zones". Do you know the difference between continental shelf and economic zone? The shelf has to do with the bottom of the sea. When a state has an economic zone the width of the shelf is equal to the width of the zone (200 nautical miles). But, according to the Treaty of 1982, a state can have continental shelf, even if it has no exclusive economic zone.
• "See also: Foreign relations of Turkey, Foreign relations of Greece". I think that this should go. You can easily incorporate the links somewhere in the main prose.
• In your intro in "Maritime and areal zones of influence", you could put one of these nice maps, depicting the Greek and Turkis islands in the Aegean.
• "Turkey doesn't recognize any extensions of Greek teritorial waters beyond 6 miles (11 km) on any of its coasts (Aegean, Mediterranean and Ionian)." "Ionian"?!! I don't think that Turkey has raised an issue for the extension of territorial waters in the Ionian. Actually, I think that they try to explain why the Ionian is a different thing from the Aegean. But, again, I may be wrong ...
• "The other countries have extended their territorial waters to 12 nautical miles (22 km)." Vague ... And not a nice expression. All the other countries of the world (Hungary as well?!)!
• "Greece, which is a party to this Convention, has stated that it reserves the right to apply this rule and extend its waters to 12 miles at some point in the future, although it has never actually attempted to do so." You should cite that, I think. After all, I don't think it is difficult to find on-line official statements of Greek officials about that.
• "Against this, Turkey is in the position of a consistent objector, having consistently upheld that the special geographical properties of the Aegean Sea make a strict application of the 12-mile rule in this case illicit in the interest of equity." Repetitive prose ... And the equity! This is the main argument in Turkey in both the territorial waters and the continental shelf; we should expand a bit on that.
• On 9 June 1995, the Turkish parliament officially declared that unilateral action by Greece would constitute a casus belli, i.e. reason to go to war, by Turkey. I think that casus belli is also an invariable and official position of their Council of National Security presided by the President of the Republic.
• "having been fixed in 1931". Having be fixed by a national Greek law. This should be mentioned. And this is an argument of Turkey against Greece. They say: You fixed it on yourselves! With your laws! Not in accord with international Treaties! And Greece answers: Yes, we fixed it ourselves, but you did not dispute our decision for about 40 years. So, your indifference has created international customary law in favor of us!
• "it was acknowledged by all its neighbours, including Turkey, before and after 1948, hence constituting an established right". It was not officially acknowledged I think, but it was not disputed at the same time.
• "(1) that its 10-mile claim predates the ICAO statute, having been fixed in 1931, and that it was acknowledged by all its neighbours, including Turkey, before and after 1948, hence constituting an established right;[4],(2) that its 10-mile claim can also be interpreted as just a partial, selective use of the much wider rights guaranteed by the Law of the Sea, namely the right to a 12-mile (22.2 km) zone both in the air and on the water, and (3) that Greek territorial waters are only set at the 6 mile boundary because of Turkey's casus belli (see above)." I don't like the (1)(2)(3). I would prefer prose without these numbers or even bullets. I did some fixing per my taste!
• "Turkey cites the statutes of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) of 1948,[3] as containing a binding definition that both zones must coincide." Prefer to put citations at the end of the sentence. Cite in the middle, only if it is absolutely necessary for emphasis.
• "The national airspace" is under-cited. Try to have at least one citation for each paragraph; preferably placed at the end of it (if you have just one!).
• "shot-downs of Turkish jets". Oups?! When was a Turkish jet shot down?!!!
• "These were perceived as a dangerous provocation by Greece, which led to a buildup of mutual military threats in 1976 and again in 1987." You should expand a bit on that. In 1987 the oceanographic mission came as a "reaction of fear" by Turkey, which was sucpicious that the Papandreou government intended to expand its research for petroleum in the waters around Thasos, entering what Greece regards as its own continental shelf (In fact, Papandreou was attempting to do exactly the opposite! He wanted to nationalize the oil company there, because the Canadian owners indeed intended to conduct reasearch in the continental shelf! But the Turks believed that this was a theatrinicism, and that Papandreou and the Canadian company were determined to conduct research there! There is a nice book for all that by Κ. Μαρδάς, "Προ-Ίμια Πολέμου").)
• In this section you don't mention at all "equity". You should; it is all about equity! Turkey says that the problem should be fixed with the application of "equity"; Greece says that the difference should be resolved with the strict application of international law.
• You also don't say that in 1976 Greece went to the International COurt of Hague against Turkey, asking it to rule "temporary measures against the Turkish provocations". But the Court ruled against Greece: 1) for lack of "irreperable predjudice" (ICJ Reports 1978, 3. Aegean Sea Continental Shelf, Interim Protection, Order of 19 December 1978), 2) for incompetence with its ruling of December 19, 1978 (ICJ Reports 1978, 3. Aegean Sea Continental Shelf, Judgment, 19 December 1978).
• As you are a specialist on maps (!), I think you could create a map depicting territorial waters, continental shelf, and economice zone. There is a map in the article of continental shelf, but it depicts the geological continental shelf; not the continental shelf according to international law. There is a huuuuuge difference!
• Do not wikilink single years; only full dates (e.g. June 13, 1912).
• "this to prejudice a future arrangement regarding the continental shelf issue". Avoid boldings.
• "But the issue of “grey zones” has added yet two additional problems and mutual confidence loss in Turkish-Greek relations." Avoid one-sentence stubby paragraphs like this one.
• "The decades since the 1970s have seen a repeated hightening and abating of political and military tensions over the Aegean." I think that during the 70s Karamanlis had signed a Protocoll with Demirell. But I do not remember exactly where and when. I must check Μαρδάς, which right now is in another house!
• "However, a newly elected Greek government under Kostas Karamanlis, soon after it took office in March 2004, opted out of this plan, because Ankara was insisting that all the issues, including Imia/Kardak and the "grey zones", belonged to a single negotiating item. Athens saw them as separate [8]. However, ..." Choppy!
• Get rid of the "See also" section. You can link anything you want through the main prose.
• Fix the online sources used in your citations properly and uniformally using Tepmlate:cite web and Template:cite news.--Yannismarou 17:02, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Wow, thanks for this very knowledgable input, very useful points. Will work on it! Some of the inaccuracies you spotted seem to have crept in slowly in the course of the months when nobody was monitoring the article very closely. I'm not sure if I have a map that shows the precise extension of the continental shelf according to the Turkish thesis. Your stylistic monita are certainly spot on. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:20, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Demilitarized status

The text says:

Several of the Greek islands in the eastern Aegean have at various times during the 20th century been placed under a status of demilitarization. This was done, after the decades-long period of wars between Greece and Turkey which culminated in the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922), in order to ease possible Turkish fears of Greek expansionism.

A source is missing that the demilitarization was done in order to ease possible Turkish fears. Another interpretation is that the demilitarization was insisted upon by Turkey with the aim of gaining valuable geographic "hostages" in order to improve its bargaining position vis-à-vis Greece. I think this should be elaborated.

I have a problem with the following passage:

After the Cyprus crisis of 1974, Greece proceeded to break the demilitarized status of these islands, at first secretly but later openly too, claiming an inalienable right to defend itself against Turkish aggression. Turkey, on the other hand, denounces this as an aggressive act by Greece and as a breach of international treaties.[3]

The source is a text published by the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This is hardly an NPOV source. The Lausanne treaty e.g. allows military forces (as many can be locally recruited as well as a force of police and gendarmerie proportionate to the force of police and gendarmerie throughout the rest of Greece) in the case of Lesbos, Chios, Samos and Ikaria. The status of these islands is one of reduced military presence, not complete demilitarization. Greek military forces hardly constitute a "break" of the demilitarized status. I would prefer a more flexible formulation, like that after 1974 Greece proceeded to reinforce its military and internal security forces in the region.

Any comments on that?

Letus 19:30, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

In the case of the islands you mention, but Dwdekanhsa is a different case.--Yannismarou 21:00, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know, not even the Greek government currently denies that it has more military there than the demilitarization statutes would have allowed. Otherwise, there wouldn't be much sense in them publicly developing intricate legal argumentation about why they no longer consider those statutes binding, would there? If you insist, I'd have to search for a source. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:25, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

That's not so simple. The islands we are dealing with are covered by different militarization regimes. I think the Greeks' official position is that on Lesbos, Chios, Samos and Ikaria the demilitarization regime is respected. They do not appear to me to be "developing intricate legal argumentation about why they no longer consider those statutes binding", but to provide a legal argumentation for why the Turkish claims of a violation are unfounded. If you disagree it would be helpful to find an official Greek government source confirming your thesis. The Dodecanese is a different case. Letus 11:27, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

We were discussing that yesterday on my talkpage. It's true that they apparently still deny violating the statutes in the case of Lesbos etc., I was wrong about that. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:03, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Not just the "grey zones"

To the best of my knowledge, Rhodes has not yet been declared a "grey zone" by Turkey, but that didn't stop Turkish warjets flying directly over it not too long ago. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 18:56, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Is there any reliable info about (a) how often that happens, (b) whether the Turkish side admits it's happening, (c) why it happens? I've never yet seen reliable, official reports about such incidents. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:00, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

There is a video in youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbSXGOzNrOQ showing Turkish f-16s flying directly above Agathonisi a greek populated island. The video was shown in one of the biggest Greek networks. Soathana (talk) 15:58, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually there are a lot of reports on Turkish overflights going back a couple of years. For instance, a Greek aviation magazine in 2003 reported that the Flight Safety Direction at Rhodes airport reported an overflight of the airport terminal area by two Turkish jets and protested to the International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAO). This does appear hardly accidental to me. The Greek government in such cases sends an official diplomatic protest note to Ankara. Turkish overflights are an established fact - the question is whether and to which extent they should be mentioned here. Letus (talk) 18:47, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Turkish Military overflights

I think it should be mentioned in this section that since Greece extended her airspace to ten nautical miles in 1931 until 1974/5 Turkish jets actually respected Greek national airspace and did only fly over Greek territory with diplomatic clearance. After 1950 they submitted flightplans to Greek air traffic control and refrained from promulgating NOTAMs conflicting with Greek ones. Only after the Cyprus crisis the Turkish airforce ceased to cooperate with Greek authorities. I tink this is important background information to the Aegean Dispute. Letus (talk) 15:54, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Indeed vital, but wont be included sadly, someone might call it it original research or make up some other 'excuse.'If it wasmy Wiki I would include it in first lines of the article. Reaper7 (talk) 22:59, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Any source on that? TheDarkLordSeth (talk) 23:36, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Lemnos and samothrace

Hello to all.

Nowhere in the treaty of lausanne does it say that lemnos and samothrace are demilitarized. (I just read the full text..).

however, in the article it says they are demilitarized... i am confused! ANyone help ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.165.193.73 (talk) 11:56, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

It's in Article 4 (it says the islands are neutralized) and then Article 6 (it says neutralized islands must be demilitarized). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:587:290B:E00:60F1:4C29:9A85:F273 (talk) 01:13, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

To be more precise, it's in articles 4 and 6 of the "Convention relating to the Straits", which was an annex to the Treaty of Lausanne, not in the main treaty proper. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:56, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

What's a "havary"? Spelling mistake?

What's a "havary"? the word appears in the article but I can't find it in any dictionary. Is it an English word or a spelling mistake?

Must have been a mistranslation from German Havarie or French avarie, meaning a naval accident. Thanks for pointing it out. Funny nobody spotted it in quite a number of years. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:09, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Problem with the Territorial waters and air space maps

The aforementioned maps are missing one important element of the Aegean dispute: the island of Kastelorizo, east of Rhodes. Kastelorizo, and the continental shelf Greece claims, change the maps fully. 212.251.108.151 (talk) 23:56, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Kastellorizo is neither in the Aegean, nor is it disputed, so it's hardly pertinent to this page. And we currently have no maps of continental shelf claims at all anyway. If you want to make larger maps that include Kastellorizo, feel free. Fut.Perf. ☼ 00:18, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

I think you're wrong. Kastelorizo belongs to the "South Aegean" periphery of Greece. And regarding whether it's disputed or not, recent news will perhaps enlighten you - lots of military activity around it these days. I would love to make larger maps that include it, but I don't know how. I thought someone might be able to do that... 212.251.108.151 (talk) 22:44, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

The omission of Kastellorizo, is an important one. The maps need to be fully revised. How were they generated in first place?(Mavroudisv (talk) 00:08, 4 August 2014 (UTC))

my edit summary

I mean to say "nautical mile(s)" not "nautical mile".96.52.0.249 (talk) 00:12, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

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Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Aegean dispute/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

The article needs better citing.--Yannismarou 13:26, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Last edited at 13:26, 25 January 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 06:46, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

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Imbros, Tenedos

Should be included the autonomy granted to these islands according to the treaty of Lausanne 176.92.16.37 (talk) 00:42, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

If you cite reliable, published sources which say that according to the Treaty of Lausanne Turkey should provide autonomy to Imbros and Tenedos, but that it has not despite the Greek protests, you can make that statement here. If you do not, you cannot. General Ization ^Talk 00:43, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Problem with calling "unique" the non-coinciding of water/airspace boundaries

In the article, and especially at the National airspace section, we have the following text:

The delimitation of national airspace claimed by Greece is unique, as it does not coincide with the boundary of the territorial waters. Greece claims 10 nautical miles (19 km) of airspace, as opposed to currently 6 miles of territorial waters. [...] Against this, Greece argues that: Greek territorial waters are set at the 6 mile boundary only because of Turkey's casus belli.

however, in fact, the reason the water/airspaces do not coincide, is due to Turkish threats, and is not merely an argument used by the Greek side. To call this merely a "Greek argument" is rather problematic, because in the previous section, the Territorial waters section, it is made clear why this is the case. For this reason, I made the following edit:

The delimitation of national airspace claimed by Greece is unique, as it does not coincide with the boundary of the territorial waters. Greece currently claims 10 nautical miles (19 km) of airspace, but, due to turkish threats, only 6 miles of territorial waters.

This should help avoiding possible misconceptions. However given how easily can my edits be misunderstood, I felt the necessity to clarify my edits here. Still I would appreciate if can someone offer a better wording to this. --👧🏻 SilentResident 👧🏻 ^{(talk ✉️ | contribs 📝)} 17:18, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

It's actually not true that the airspace anomaly is "due to Turkish threats" (apart from the fact that, if it wasn't for Turkey, Greece would probably have expanded both the airspace and the territorial waters to 12 miles by now). But the anomaly as such is much older than any Turkish threats. The airspace was fixed at those 10 miles from the very first moment Greece began to claim a national airspace at all (sometime in the 1920s or early 1930s, if I remember correctly). Back then it was already different from the territorial waters, and that was already an exceptional situation, compared with other states world-wide. This was much earlier than any conflict with Turkey, which only began in the 1970s and 80s. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:48, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Future, don't get me wrong, I know you are experienced on the issue of the Aegean Dispute, and I do not question what you say. However I am feeling like I am missing something, because 1) you sound certain for your statements when reverting me, yet 2) I wouldn't find these RS confirming the sentences we are arguing about. They are not cited, and those which are cited have one of the links is broken as well. Am I missing something, or is there an way to validate this information? Because when I look at the current citations around these sentences, I was unable to verify the claims. I looked now online on the matter, and I have stumbled upon some useful information. The RS are from journalists and experts on the matter, such as Giannis Cartalis, and Paris Carbounopoulos, with data drawn from the Greek Foreign Ministry's Legal Office as well as the Ministry of Defence. Here is an example: [2] --👧🏻 SilentResident 👧🏻 ^{(talk ✉️ | contribs 📝)} 20:53, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, this text has been around since 2006, when most people on Wikipedia handled verification requirements a bit less strictly than today. There is plenty of literature on the topic though that can confirm the basics. Try the first two that come up in a Google book search for "Aegean airspace 10 miles": [3] (by a Turkish author); [4] (by a Greek author). What's a bit more difficult is finding good treatments from a neutral third-party perspective; most of the literature is by authors from either of the two countries, who all tend to be defensive of their national positions to some extent. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:58, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Turkish armed overflights

@SilentResident: I support an addition about escalation of armed overflights, but the current subsection has some problems, the main one being about sources. All the sources seem to be about specific overflight incidents (and I am sure it is possible to find a lot more such sources, also in English and also non-Greek sources). But some important points of your addition does not seem to be sourced: escalating its provocations ... by adopting new practices and are considered to be the most extreme. If this is supported by the Greek-language sources, it should be quoted (and translated). If not, better sources are needed.

Also: Per MOS:DATED, In recent years should be changed to a more time-specific expression ("from around 201x", "from the mid-2010s" or whatever time frame is applicable).

And: The mention of overflights of armed F-16 directly above inhabited Greek islands and then in the next sentence overflights of armed military jets above inhabited islands is redundant. I have simplified. Regards! --T*U (talk) 12:11, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Plus, it's all in the wrong section (overflights of islands are already getting treated in the section below). Plus, the whole tone of the addition is uncritically taking over the political evaluation of its Greek sources and therefore comes across as heavily tendentious. Plus, the focus on islands being "inhabited" is probably OR; probably a much more pertinent criterion of what sets certain events apart from others is that some of these overflights seem to have been over islands that aren't conceivably "grey" even according to the most extreme interpretation of Turkey's own claims (e.g. Kastellorizo, but also the small uninhabited ones near it). Plus, there's bulk over-citing, with several news reports covering the same events, creating the impression of a much higher number of distinct events than warranted. The usual tendentious junk editing again, as so often before. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:06, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

About "extreme": Here is source mentioning the calls of politicians for an urgent meeting of the National Foreign Policy Council to discuss this period of "extreme Turkish provocations" after an "extremely worrying incident" with an overflight above an inhabited Greek island. Copy-pasting the original paragraph here: "The meeting of the National Foreign Policy Council (ESEC) to discuss the course of Greek-Turkish relations, following yesterday's extremely worrying incident in Pharmakonisi, was demanded by the ND foreign affairs chief. Mr. George Koumoutsakos, in a letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Nikos Kotzias. Associates of Mr Koumoutsakos stressed that the ND initiative moves to support national interests, during a period of extreme Turkish provocations."): [5]

I didn't expect this to be a problem for you, thats why I didn't rush to add it immediatelly. This source is to be added one of these days, along with more information (more below).

However if you feel this isn't appropriate as Wikipedic tone, there is another source using the term "Serious" instead of "extreme" so I guess that suffices as well. From Ta Nea: "It is noted that the flight, ie the flight of Turkish armed aircraft over the inhabited Greek islands, is considered one of the most serious provocations, as it is a practical challenge to Greece's territorial sovereignty." (original: "Σημειώνεται πως η υπέρπτηση, η πτήση δηλαδή τουρκικών οπλισμένων αεροσκαφών πάνω από κατοικημένα ελληνικά νησιά θεωρείται από τις πιο σοβαρές προκλήσεις, αφού είναι έμπρακτη αμφισβήτηση της εδαφικής κυριαρχίας της Ελλάδας."). This source is already cited, while the other one will be added together with new pending information for the article. If you prefer this wording (serious) for the article, feel free to do so. IMO it doesn't change much the tone that reflects the extreme situation Greece faces in the Aegean this period, while at same time, delivers the actual image of the worrysome situation to the readers.

In recent years Yes, this is taken from here: [6] "After a long time, the Turkish Air Force returned to the practice of flying over the Greek islands, apparently in order to recall its positions and claims." (original: Μετά από αρκετό καιρό, η τουρκική Πολεμική Αεροπορία επέστρεψε στην πρακτική των υπερπτήσεων πάνω από ελληνικά νησιά, προφανώς για να υπενθυμίσει τις θέσεις και διεκδικήσεις της.) This is a practice which didn't happen all the time, but only in the recent years, after a long pause, which, from what I can see in the sources, was due to pressures from the international community, and particularly the ICG (International Crisis Group) [7] and USA's Hillary Clinton, [8] who asked Turkey to cease its overflights above inhabited Greek islands, especially Agathonisi and Farmakonisi.

escalating its provocations ... by adopting new practices Source for "Escalating its provocations" is TA NEA: [9] which speaks about escalation (κλιμακώνει) of Turkey's provocations, by doing overflights above inhabited Greek islands, by armed Turkish F-16.

The "new practices", are my choice of words to describe the new practices the one side uses to provoke the other side (and new, are in the context that these practices weren't always used and are new in relation to the other forms of tensions already covered in this article. From what I know, they begun sometime in the late 2000s for a short time before they were abandoned (I assume it was due to USA, EU and ICG pressure), but only re-adopted recently and, I can confirm, are being used frequently since then, to this very day. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 14:39, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Edit: Future Perfect with his classic pro-Turkish POV trying to downplay the overall issue by equating the overflights above inhabited Greek islands with towns and villages which Turkey previously didn't dispute (i.e. Chios and Kastellorizo), to Turkish overflights above rocky uninhabited islands which were already disputed by Turkey. No way. The issue we are having now is an escalated form of provocations from the Turkish side, and cannot be reduced to the usual category "dispute over rocky islets". Like it or not, Turkey and Erdogan have escalated their provocations in the region, and this is not unrelated to the domestic developments (post-2013) in Turkey and I believe this should be reflected accordingly in the article. We previously never had Turkish fregates sailing few meters from Greek ports (yes, this happened, and I bet you didn't knew - what makes it more serious is that this Turkish fregate had its missiles activated and aiming towards the little Greek village and its citizens), or Turkish Airplanes flying above inhabited areas like that in the past. Nor we had previously the President Erdogan photographizing himself behind official maps of Mavi Vatan, which color the eastern half of the Aegean Sea and its roughly 1,000 Greek islands as Turkish in an official ceremony at the National Defence University, a state military university in Turkey. Provocations really escalated, and there is so much to add, and sadly, not many editors seeming willing to do so, not even Future Perf. Edit: sorry for my evident frustration in this comment, but I really feel that my efforts are unappreciated by this particular editor who prefers bossing me around, instead. Future Perfect should comment only on content, not on other editors. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 14:48, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Regarding In recent years. The problem is not the sourcing of this expression, but the encyclopaedic use of time-relative expressions in general. Please see WP:DATED with the heading "Statements likely to become outdated".

Regarding everything else: I am fully aware of the Turkish escalation of provocative overflights. I have seen with my own eyes how Turkish planes now fly directly over Kastellorizo where they ten–fifteen years ago flew exactly midway between Kaş and Kastellorizo. But that is OR. I would, however, be a lot more happy if we could use neutral sources describing escalation and new practice instead of synthesising from Greek-only sources. --T*U (talk) 15:56, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

I see. However here lies the problem: The West doesn't care about what is going on the Aegean. None cares how the backpetaling of Turkey from a democratic state to a hybrid-regime with strong elements of one-man rule and lack of checks and balances has also removed any last barriers that would keep the Aegean calm and peaceful. The Greeks are basically left alone to fend off for themselves against a man who has no qualms about domestic and regional instabilities that may be caused by his policies. The sources being in their vast majority Greek, simply reflects on this reality. However we shall bear in mind that Wikipedia actually permits inclusion of biased sources. Even biased sources may be cited, as long as they are attributed in a correct manner. It would be unjust for both the Wikipedia readers and for the editors if we did the opposite here. After all, I do not see how Greek reports on the matter are a problem, since the EU and other international bodies, use Greek sources in their reports against Turkey. And the thing which is overlooked here is, that even these few third-party sources who happened to come to Greece and witness what is going on in the Aegean, confirm Turkish aggression, as did neutral observers do on all fronts: Turkish meddling in Bulgaria's affairs using the Muslim party in that country, Turkey's policies against Egypt, Turkish invasion in Syria, Turkey's stance against Cyprus, Turkey's illegal bombings of Iraq which occur everyday, Turkey's closed borders with Armenia and the denial of Armenian genocide, and Turkey's attitude against its own ethnic minorities which confirm one thing: aggresion and interventionism is a core element of the Turkish foreign policy of the last decade. And mind you, not all observers cover on all aspects. Some of these issues, in fact, lack adequate widespread international or third party attention, yet it is not a problem to cite local sources. I know some local Greek sources may been problematic in the past, but this hardly is the case anymore. It is just the reality of the region. As long as we trust Greek WP:RS everything should be ok. And one of the reasons I do love Wikipedia, is because it has editors such as you: in the event I do any mistakes with the tone of my contributions, I have faith that my errors won't be left unattended and unanswered by other editors.

EDIT: If I may add: and it is not only the international organizations and EU that consider the Greek sources as reliable: it is also the United States, whose the Congress and the Senate proposed and passed laws which ask from the Department of State to report on Turkish violations in the Aegean Sea using Greek sources. the Act is called Eastern Mediterranean Security and Energy Partnership Act and it forces the US to monitor violations of Greek and Cypriot airspace by Turkish planes as well as incursions and saber-rattling by Turkey. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 17:20, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Before going deeper into WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS, WP:SOAPBOX and WP:NOTAFORUM territory, I will just ask for a balance between sources and content. There is a marked difference between "one of the most serious" and "the most serious" (not to mention between "extreme" and "the most extreme" in your original version). Also, escalating its provocations ... by adopting new practices is bordering on WP:SYNTH unless supported by sources that actually discuss the escalation and the change of practices. Finally, relevant quotes from the sources (with translation) are absolutely necessary. --T*U (talk) 07:17, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

TU-nor, if you feel there are problems in the content, you are more than welcome to be WP:BOLD or use the Talk Page to propose improvements to the content instead of focusing persistently on editors and their choices of wording, specially since these editors responded swiftlty and addressed your concerns by themselves: [10]. You don't need me to tell you that you are welcome to either fix the problematic parts yourself, either make suggestions / bring the problems to our attention so we fix them for you. You know that already. You may not realize it but your arguments on whether "my original version" had a right choice of words despite having it been already addressed, or whether the "Greekness" of sources makes them of questionable reliability, simply go against Wikipedia's rules on WP:INDCRIT and WP:PARTISAN and is counterproductive.

Regarding WP:NOTFORUM, I shall remind you we are not forumtalking, but pointing out on how outdated the article is. All the issues I have mentioned here (such as international pressure over overflights, USA's East Med Act, foreign Frigates aiming at Greek towns only few miles from the shore, Mavi Vatan map claiming 1.000 Greek islands, and Turkey's turbulent domestic issues in relation to foreign policy) are new content which should have been added to the article as they relate to the Aegean dispute but was not.

I pointed out to these issues, not to start a forum chat with you but to bring to everyone's attention the discrepancy between the article's content and the ongoing developments in the Aegean Sea. A discrepancy which is likely to grow given the way I see this talk page topic is heading. If we want to encourage more editors to come and make contributions to this article to help bring it up to date with the latest developments, we will have to WP:AGF and WP:NPA. Which, sorry to say, is not what I am seeing on in this talk page.

As for me, I wasn't too excited to make edits here on this article because, from past experience, I know the entire Greece topic area has only two articles featuring a hostile environment for editors to make contributions to it: Aegean Sea and Imia. It seems this hasn't changed in the slightest and perhaps I should abandon my efforts alltogether.

Edit: Last, regarding WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS, WP:SOAPBOX: The content already added, and the content that is about to be added, is WP:VERIFIED with WP:RS and WP:RELEVANT to the article. If you have a problem with the sources or the content's inclusion to the article, then feel free to discuss it. If the sources are your concern, there is the RSN for that. Anything else, simply falls into WP:IDONTLIKEIT territory. -- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 09:17, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

I have taken your challenge and made a bold edit, adjusting the text slightly and reorganised the sources somewhat. I have used the quote that you supplied from Ta Nea. (If there are other relevant quotes from the other news articles, please add them.) I have removed one of the sources, since it was duplicating the ToVima source, and I have added dates to the citations to ensure they all describe different events. I have added a cn tag for the "adopted new practices", since I think it must be sourced, especially with the plural "practices". (What other practice is new?) Finally, I have stricken my comment about "your original version", which was undue. --T*U (talk) 12:00, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, TU-nor. Once I find the time and have plowed through the sources, I'll move the section into the "islands" section where it belongs, tone down the POV a bit further (since, e.g., "escalated its provocations against Greece's sovereignty" is of course not encyclopedic fact, but political evaluation by the Greek side), and add some more detail. "Islands such as Chios, Kastellorizo and Agathonisi" is really not appropriate, as these are three very different categories of islands – Agathonisi is pretty officially "grey" according to the Turkish claims (however nonsensical those are), so overflights there are not particularly new and not particularly surprising. Kastellorizo is an entirely different kettle of fish, and I'd be interested to find out how regularly that occurs and how the Turks would justify it (as Turkey really has no pretext to challenge Greek sovereignty there, even according to its own argumentation). Chios is in an entirely different ballpark again, and I suspect it may well be one of those one-off "accidental" cases where overflights happen during dogfights (with Turkey arguing it's none of their own fault if their planes are forced to fly over Greek territory, once they've been forced into those dogfight maneuvres by the Greek intercepts). This needs some more research. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:37, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

@Future Perfect at Sunrise: Regarding Kastellorizo, provocative Turkish military behaviour is nothing new. As long as I have known the island, low altitude flights by Turkish jet planes along the midline between the island and the Turkish mainland (sometimes suspiciously close to the island) has been a regular occurance, varying from perhaps twice a week to several times a day, according to the tension level. What seems to be new the last few years, is higher frequency and less predictability, with clear overflights at higher altitude, close helicopter and jet flights in darkness, etc. (also combined with increased harrassment by the Turkish coastguard against local fishermen). The locals mostly take it in the stride and ascribe much of it to internal Turkish politics, but it is seen as intimidating, and potential conflicts about possible future use of the seabed (I did not mention oil) in the area seems to loom in the air. Anyway, this is pure WP:OR and impossible to source, and Kastellorizo certainly is a special case. --T*U (talk) 13:44, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Future Perfect, your pro-Turkish POV is hard to swallow. "accidental" violations of Greek sovereignty? Really? I am kindly asking that you keep your opinions for yourself and stick to what WP:RS say on the matter. If you find RS on what Turks say or believe on the matter, you are welcome to add it.

Now, regarding the Turkish "explanations" and "pretexts" you mentioned, frankly, when I was working on the sentence, I myself looked to find Turkish WP:RS for the reasons behind the Turkish overflights over Kastellorizo so I can include them to the article, but found nothing. Absolutely nothing. You can try for yourself too, albeit you will probably find yourself empty-handed too. And I have some theories for why Turkish WP:RS difficult to find. But I prefer not analyzing my theories here as this is irrelevant to the article and its talkpage.

However I shall note that the Turkish side didn't limit itself to overflights of F-16 above Kastellorizo, but also made, in separate incidents, the same thing with helicopters flying at night above nearby island of Rho as well, with their lights turned off. [11] Perhaps it is as noteworthy too, since Rho was never disputed by Turkey previously.

All the overflights and other provocations occured within in what the Turkish President Tayip Erdogan and his Defence Minister Hulusi Akar started repeatedly calling as the "Cyan Homeland" (Mavi Vatan). Here is the RS on Mavi Vatan: [12] which I am thinking of adding to the article. It is a new theoretical invention invented recently by the Turkish leadership, to lay (legal?) claims over the eastern half of the Aegean Sea (including Kastellorizo). He presented it officially in front of the cameras, first in a ceremony at the state military university, and later, through the official website of the Turkish Presidency. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 14:13, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

@SilentResident: No, the helicopters did not fly above Rho, they flew exactly outside Greek airspace, which was probably the point. I was actually in Kastellorizo at the time, and even if it was a big issue, no-one mistook it for anything else than meant for national-internal use.

Regarding Mavi Vatan ("Blue Homeland" is the traditional translation), it is neither "invented recently" nor has it been "presented officially". It is just another not-so-subtle way of reminding Greece and the world about the casus belli-situation regarding the Aegean, and it is mostly meant for internal national consumption. Subtlety has never been Erdogan's strongest quality... --T*U (talk) 14:47, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Any sources to support your claims? If I was you, I wouldn't believe for a moment that all this effort is just for domestic consumption. The RS do not support this argument either.

Personally, given the long, recorded history of expansive and growing Turkish claims over control of the Aegean Sea (from zero island claims in 1960s, to 2 islands in 1990s, to 4 islands claimed in 2000s, to 18 islands in early 2010s, and 152 islands in 2017, etc), there is clearly a pattern and I would rather prefer being cautious.

Edit: I appreciate your info about the Rho incident. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 15:56, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

It's really weird to term this as 'accidental violations' it's more close to a long term agenda of violations. Material provided by SR makes this fact quite clear.Alexikoua (talk) 18:43, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

@SilentResident: Regarding your question in this posting, Any sources to support your claims?, I am not quite sure what you ask me to source, but I will do my best. You must excuse me for taking long to answer this, since it has taken quite some time to access sources. My Greek is somewhat limited, to put it mildly.

The information that the helicopters circled just outside Greek airspace is supported by the source you gave: "καθώς καίτοι δεν παραβίασε τον ελληνικό εναέριο χώρο, πέταξε στα όρια αυτού με σβηστά τα φώτα" (meaning something like "even if it did not violate Greek airspace, it flew at the border with the lights off"). My comment that "no-one mistook it for anything else than meant for national-internal use" is, as should be obvious from the context, my personal impression of the reactions, but your source indicates the same: "με στόχο την πρόκληση ενός επεισοδίου για λόγους εσωτερικής πολιτικής κατανάλωσης στην Τουρκία" ("in order to provoke a situation for the sake of domestic consumption policy in Turkey").

The information that "Blue Homeland" is not invented recently is, again, based on the source you gave: "Το 2006 η πρώτη χρήση του όρου" ("The first use of the term in 2006"). As for not being presented officially, that is a bit hard to prove, since proving a negative is always difficult. However, the source says "ο συγκεκριμένος χάρτης δεν ήταν μεταξύ εκείνων που είχε παρουσιάσει η ηγεσία του τουρκικού υπουργείου Εξωτερικών τον περασμένο Μάιο σε ξένους διπλωμάτες, τότε που τους είχε καλέσει για να τους «εξηγήσει» τις τουρκικές διεκδικήσεις στην Ανατολική Μεσόγειο" ("the specific map was not presented to foreign diplomats by the Turkish Foreign Ministry last May, when calling them in to "explain" the Turkish claims in the eastern Mediterranean").

Finally, my analysis of "internal national consumption" is again, of course, my analysis. However, your comment If I was you, I wouldn't believe for a moment that all this effort is just for domestic consumption is a straw man, since I never suggested it was "just for domestic consumption". On the contrary, I said that it was a "way of reminding Greece and the world about the casus belli-situation regarding the Aegean". But since the Greeks (and the world) are fully aware of the situation, and the Turks know that the Greeks are fully aware of it, my analysis is that it was not just, but mostly meant for internal national consumption.

I feel I have used enough time now on hair-splitting about things outside the article, but I would appreciate comments to my edits to the article. --T*U (talk) 07:45, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Oh, sorry if I wasn't more elaborate on this: "I appreciate your info about the Rho incident" was the only one about Rho and I appreciate your response which I found satisfactory.

The rest of the reply, including "Any sources to support your claims?" is about Mavi Vatan, not Rho. The source does not support that the Mavi Vatan is about domestic consumption. Sorry if I confused you.

Your edits are fine, except you asked for citations for my own wording. Earlier in this discussion, I made it clear that The "new practices", are my choice of words to describe the fact that overflights are something new in relation to all other practices Turkey has adopted in the Aegean. Asking for citation for attribution, is really weird. Why? If anyone feels the attributed wording used isnt good, then we can just replace it with something better. No need for CN tag there. Edit: removed tag [13]. Anyone is welcome to reword it as best as they see, if my wording is poor. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 08:41, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

The problem is not the wording, but the claim itself. If such overflights "are something new in relation to all other practices Turkey has adopted in the Aegean", it should be sourced. With the use of plural "new practices", it also ought to be sourced that there are more than one "new practice". I do not do edit wars, but I ask you to either reinstate the tag or give sources. If any of the sources already given is supporting the "new practice" claim, then please give the relavant quote. --T*U (talk) 09:25, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Improving upon added content is absolutely natural and not a cause for edit wars, Edit wars are made by disruptive editors. I sense there is a lack of trust of your part towards other editors and I don't know why. In case I wasn't very clear already: you are more than welcome to continue your improvements on the sentence. You and certain other editors here, have proven to be more elloquent in your use of English language and the more you improve upon my edits, the happier I am. Simple as that.

Ok I take it you have a concern over this term "new practice" chosen to describe the fact that Turkey hasn't always done overflights above inhabited islands in the Aegean. Everyone who does a Google research will easily notice how reports of such incidents begun in the mid to late 2000s, then were quickly stopped, and then were re-emerged (or returned or whatever you could call that) and were escalated in the late 2010s (around 2017-2019). Do you have any better ideas on how to attribute this collective fact (i.e. a better wording)? Perhaps "new tactic"? "new form of provocations"? Or perhaps the lack of a single source recording ALL overflights above inhabited areas stands as an argument to have this information omitted completely from the article? Either way I am fine, albeit I personally believe the more information available to the readers, the better. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 10:06, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

When I wrote I do not do edit wars, it was a (perhaps clumsy) way of saying that I would not reinstate the tag, even if I disagree with the removal. No lack of trust.

Comment: If everyone "does a Google research", it is WP:OR.

Comment: If the practice "begun in the mid to late 2000s", well, then it is not a new practice.

Again, it is not about wording, it is about sourcing (and about what other practice justifies the use of plural).

Anyway, I am fine with removing it, at least until the text can be expanded with sourced content about this and other new practices. --T*U (talk) 10:35, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Indeed it is not "new" now that we are entering 2020s. Replaced it with "with".

OK people, look now at all this whole chat. Just for a small paragraph! The reason I am bringing this to everyone's attention is because there is alot more content ahead to add, whose the size surpass this paragraph. To avoid slowing down the progress, I could suggest the editors here feel more WP:BOLD and less worried of being reverted. The key to us being more productive and faster with our edits, is trust and goodfaith. Otherwise, at this rate, the new content will take bureaucratically long time to be materialized into their final forms. From my side, I will try avoid mentioning the new content in the talk page, and rather be bold and add it to the article without announcing it here at all, because some visitors to this talk page may think we are just forum talking and this isn't my intention. Also with the necessary attention to sources/content. Now I guess this discussion has come to a natural end? Have a good day. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 11:47, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

@TU-nor: we had this discussion here, but it seems that the things aren't exactly how some of us expected to be.

If I may inform you on your statement: "Regarding Mavi Vatan ("Blue Homeland" is the traditional translation), it is neither "invented recently" nor has it been "presented officially". It is just another not-so-subtle way of reminding Greece and the world about the casus belli-situation regarding the Aegean, and it is mostly meant for internal national consumption." unfortunately, reality is far worse than this, and I had my suspicions (given the escalation of Turkey's aggresive behavior on other matters concerning the Aegean, i.e overflights)

I waited patiently for the rest of this November month's days to pass before I finally proceed with adding the content to the article, accompanied with indisputable proof. The tangible evidence shows that my fears were proven true: that the Mavi Vatan is not for internal consumption but a newly-adopted, and more aggressive policy of the Turkish government which appears to replace (or override) its previous policies for the control of the Aegean Sea. The Turkish President Erdogan is hungry for territorial expansion both in Asia (Syria) and Europe (Greece and Cyprus) and for that, he adopted the Mavi Vatan concept (which originally was the invention of a General who served in the Turkish Army in the 2010s). As of November 2019, it has been officialized at the highest possible diplomatic level when Turkey submitted the Mavi Vatan claims to the UN and the UN's Bullettin of the Sea, and then went ahead with signing bilateral agreements with third party countries based on this concept.

Now, regarding the article: all the content/information on Mavi Vatan and the developments around it, along with reliable sources, are added to the article today (well all except the origins of the idea). I hope this discussion is now concluded properly and without any misconceptions on what it really is about. Have a happy new month. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 19:17, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Blue Homeland - ongoing events in the East Med

Added an Ongoing Events tag to the Blue Homeland, as I have been doing the whole work, and the updates, all by myself alone. Hope this will draw some attention to the article so that I don't have to do it all by myself. Any help is appreciated. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 16:10, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

There is alot to report on the Mavi Vatan and Turkey-Libya deal but I don't know where to start. For now, most of the information added is less about the background of the deal and more about reactions and positions. Provided a map (made in PNG format as I am not too skilled with .SVG files sorry), info, sources with quotes and more. I wasn't sure if the developments justify the inclusion of a Current Event tag, but if anyone believes this tag is not necessary, then feel free to remove it. If the developments slow down in the next days, I will remove it myself. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 16:21, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

New sections

As was to be expected: massively bad [14]. This will take a lot of work to cut through all the dross.

Absurdly over-long, large amounts of WP:NOTNEWS ephemerals. Cite-bombing, including the usual tactics of adding multiple refs replicating the same news item, as if they were independent pieces of support for the same claim. Blatant, naively POV-pushing expressions of opinion in many places. The map is a mess, problematic in terms of copyright, and full of outright falsehoods.

Apart from these usual general symptoms of low-quality and tendentious editing, I'm not convinced the scope of the whole "Blue Homeland" section is correct. The issue of the general disagreement about delimiting EEZs (with or without taking islands into account) needs to be integrated with the preceding section about the continental shelf, because it's the same issue in principle. As for the whole Libya agreement issue, it's unclear to me how it's in the scope of this article at all, since the maritime zones at issue there aren't geographically part of the Aegean. I might be persuaded about widening the scope of this page so as to include these matters, as they are clearly related with the "Aegean" issues proper, but at the moment this seems extraneous here. I'd appreciate input from competent fellow wikipedians on whether and how to integrate it.

I'll be starting to do some cleanup soon, but I'm not sure I have the strength to deal with the inevitable disruption from the usual suspects, so maybe the article is indeed irretrievably lost and on the way down the drain now. It's a pity, really, after we managed to keep it reasonably clean from national POV-warring for well over ten years. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:15, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Classic WP:IDONTLIKEIT by the Pro-Turkish POV editor who claims Turkey to be a good country whose policies are not a violation of Greece's sovereign rights. You are welcome to contribute positively, but any attempts to remove sourced content will be reverted. You have been warned. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 17:41, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Your attempts to standardize Turkey's viewpoint and remove WP:RS have been reverted. [15] The rest of your edits [16] [17] seem fine, but I would very kindly ask you that any content you may disagree with, you should bring it here to the Talk page for discussion as not everyone shares your POV. Massive cleanups like that, is disruptive move, shows how much you disregard other's efforts and isn't helpful. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 18:07, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Edit: Also I had to revert you here: [18] sorry but your edits are not in line with the source. Doing such a drastic change of the keyword to the whole dispute, is crossing dangerously the WP:OR lines. Also, if you read the sources further down in the article, you can understand that this is an actual challenge to Greece's sovereign rights and why this dispute is so serious. (in case you weren't following the developments of the past month) --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 18:24, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

SilentResident: This will be my last and only attempt at addressing you directly in discussing this. Four points: First, cut out your personal attacks. You have not the faintest clue what my personal opinions on these matters are, whether I'm "pro-Turkish" or pro-whatever, or what my motivations or my "POV" are. And that's as it should be, because as long as people can't tell from my writing where my own sympathies lie, I must be doing something right as a Wikipedian. Second, learn to respect BRD. You made bold additions, I reverted parts of them – and will continue reverting other parts too, not because I disagree with their POV but because they are of horrible quality. You reverted again, before discussing. I'm pretty sure I've seen you trying to hold others to the rules of BRD, so now apply them yourself. When I remove stuff you added, it's up to you to form a consensus for their re-addition, before you re-add them. Or, at least, make an honest attempt at understanding and appreciating the objections that have been raised against them, before you revert. Third, make some effort at last to learn some talk page discipline. I've told you before that I find your obsessive habit of tinkering and adding to your own postings extremely enervating. If you can't cut down on that, I will adopt a habit of simply reverting every talk page edit of yours beyond the second in a row. Fourth, cut out the false "sorry but"s and "kindly ask you"s. We are not friends. I'm not going to be friendly with you, and I have no interest in you being friendly with me. And in fact you are being neither friendly, nor polite, nor civil. You are stonewalling and edit-warring, as always, which is as impolite as it gets, and sugering it over with phrases like that doesn't make you come across as more civil, but only as more passive-aggressive. Spare us that. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:22, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) First of all, you have my apologies for my rather harsh tone against you. I admit, our past disagreements have given me valid reasons to believe that you aren't objective to Greece-Turkey disputes even if that is what you are trying to do. Perhaps you are trying to be too neutral, to the point that your neutrality actually favors the Turkish claims and downplays the Greek side's concerns, which is a subtle violation of WP:NPOV. In case you haven't realized what I am talking about, let me bring an example of how your efforts to be neutral, actually harms neutrality:

In the article, you have attempted, in the "Blue Homeland" section, to replace "area belonging to Turkey" with "area part Turkish Sphere of Interests", yet while in first glance it may seem neutral to you, it is being confused with the actual Turkish Sphere of Interests which exists by the name "Borders of our Heart" and covers a much larger area (incl. Balkans -primarily Albania, Bosnia, North Macedonia, etc-, Middle East (Mosul) and East Med (Greek Thrace, Cyprus and Aegean Islands, primarily Rhodes and Kos, where an unofficial Turkish minority lives). This Turkish sphere of interests, was baptised "Borders of our Heart" by the current president, Erdogan. Now, let me clarify where the problem lies: this Turkish Sphere of Interests has nothing to do with "Blue Homeland". Confusing Turkey's "Borders of Heart" with Turkey's "Blue Homeland", actually diminishes the serious nature of Blue Homeland's claims to the sovereign rights of the Greek islands to their waters and EEZ. Do you see where the whole problem is? I am pessimistic. At least, if you can't understand, let me ask you that: stick with what sources say. There is a reason why "belongs to Turkey" and "peculiar" must remain in the article, even if you wouldn't understand why it is so important. I absolutely agree on BRD. Thing is, this is whole lot of a cleanup done here. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 22:09, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Reverts

1. So, about this [19] revert: "holds the peculiar definition..." is quite obviously and blatantly a statement of opinion. We don't express opinions in Wikipedia's own voice. No matter how "reliably" sourced they are and no matter how many sources we can collect that seemingly agree on them. I'm all in favour of explaining somewhere that the Turkish viewpoint is isolated, and a couple of the sources cited in that sentence are in fact suitable for that, but this needs to be somewhere else, and worded very differently. The present version is just a textbook example of clumsy, naive POV-pushing. There's also the issue of cite-bombing: the overlong list of no fewer than six refs is evidently meant to suggest a high number of independently supporting sources, but then, the second source in the group is merely quoting the first. That, too, is a textbook example of distoring, tendentious editing.

1. About this [20] revert and what that infamous map should be described as showing: The very thing that makes that map so insiduous is the fact that it is unlabelled. The map is deliberately vague about what it is meant to show. It shows a certain area, but beyond calling it "Mavi Vatan" it doesn't say anything about what it is supposed to be: territorial waters, EEZ, continental shelf, something else entirely? That it shows it as "belonging to Turkey", as the Kathimerini article put it, is not a fact, but an interpretation made by the newspaper. And "belonging" in which legal or political sense? Here and elsewhere, I would never treat any Greek newspaper as a reliable source about what a Turkish politician says or means by what he says, just as I would never treat a Turkish newspaper as a reliable source about Greece. In the absence of a genuinely reliable source explaining the actual demarcation line in that map, we should describe it simply as what it actually showed: an unlabelled area around Turkey that stretched from the Turkish coasts to the median line of the Aegean, and southwards to the median line of the Mediterranean between the Greek islands and Cyprus, enclosing (without further marking) the Greek islands situated inside this zone.

Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:01, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

I am in favor of your "turkish viewpoint is isolated". All right. Any proposals to deal with this? I am willing to give up on "Peculiar" because you got a fair point about not expressing opinions in Wikipedia's own voice. But something HAS to be added, either there or elsewhere. Removing Peculiar without adding something to counterbalance potential issues, (such as The "isolated one" which seems a good alternative) is bound to generate problems. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 22:14, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Edit: and also about the second revert (Turkish Sphere of Interests): I explained above in the previous topic [21] the reason it is a bad idea to confuse different terms. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 22:22, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Map replacement

My new map is ready: [22] but I will wait before uploading it. Let me know if you find any inaccuracies, I double-checked everything just to be sure, but any feedback is welcomed.

Edit: also uploaded a clean version: [23] just in case. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 22:27, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

As I am traveling tomorrow, I will reply back as soon as I get my hands to a PC. I hope to have some feedback on the map before it is uploaded. Have a good night. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 22:33, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

That map is an improvement, insofar as it reduces the issue of the Turkey–Libya agreement to the one (tiny) detail it actually addresses, the border segment labelled "F–E" south-east of Crete. It's no longer making the blatantly false claim that the Libya agreement somehow addressed the lateral delimitation of the Turkish EEZ towards the Greek islands. But what is the relation between this "F–E" line and the brown area (supposedly the "Mavi Vatan")? In particular, what is that small extension of brown to the west of point "F", reaching south of Crete? If Turkey were to claim that as part of its EEZ, how could its boundary towards Libya possible end at point "F", as the agreement states it would – in other words, what could that western extension possible border on, if not also Libya? I think we may need to face the fact that there have been multiple different variants of "Mavi Vatan" maps, with delimitations varying wildly in their details, and choosing one of them and supraimposing it onto that (relatively well-defined) "A-through-F" line is quite problematic. Additionally, what is the source for the other EEZ boundaries drawn in blue, and how precise are they claimed to be? We need to avoid creating the impression that those lines are somehow the "true" and "correct" EEZ boundaries. The exact boundaries of EEZs don't automatically follow from UNCLOS or anything like that. In the absence of actual bilateral agreements with the relevant neighbours, any country's claimed EEZ (including Greece's) is no more and no less a legal reality than Turkey's: it's a claim, of which there may be many competing and conflicting ones. Greece may well have a much stronger legal position in claiming what it claims than Turkey does, and a stronger consensus with more of its neighbours (I honestly don't know with how many of them it's got relevant bilateral agreements concluded), but as long as it's not agreed on a delimitation with Turkey, I don't see how any one demarcation line could be presented as the true and valid one for our purposes. Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:04, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

I don't think Greece has any ratified EEZ agreements with any of its neighbors, but I know Cyprus has ratified EEZ agreements with Israel and Egypt, and possibly Lebanon as well. Khirurg (talk) 03:32, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Greece has no ratified EEZ agreements in the Aegean Sea, but it does have a Continental Shelf agreement with Italy since 1977 [map]. Despotak (talk) 23:38, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

It's no longer making the blatantly false claim that the Libya agreement somehow addressed the lateral delimitation of the Turkish EEZ towards the Greek islands. This was what I noticed as well, hence the planned 3rd update of the other map which is now under deletion. For this I had first to gain access to the documents of the secret deal, which wasn't an easy task to do the days before the deal's documents were leaked to the public. The journalists are doing their best but this simply isn't enough sometimes.

I think we may need to face the fact that there have been multiple different variants of "Mavi Vatan" maps In this case we can use the method of approximate for defining Mavi Vatan. Another idea is to simply use the map which the President of Turkey posed himself in these photos. That would be the most accurate definition, since it is the President's doctrine, so he is the first person to know its exact boudnaries.

Additionally, what is the source for the other EEZ boundaries drawn in blue, and how precise are they claimed to be? We need to avoid creating the impression that those lines are somehow the "true" and "correct" EEZ boundaries. the map with the EEZ boundaries can be found in EEZ article here. I shall note that these EEZ boundaries are marking, not "Correct" or "True", but 1) mutually agreed EEZ boundaries between states which have made demarcations through deals and agreements, in line with the UNCLOS and the International Court of Justice (whose the rulings are based on UNCLOS), and 2): the median line, in line with the UNCLOS, in areas where there are no agreements yet. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 14:00, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

@Future Perfect at Sunrise:, despite proving to you how much seriously I take reliability of the information I add to Wikipedia (and that is, my maps as well), you accused my previous map for "making the blatantly false claim that the Libya agreement somehow addressed the lateral delimitation of the Turkish EEZ towards the Greek islands.", and I believed the same, that this this is the case as well, that the sources I used were falsely claiming there was laternal demlimitation of the Turkish EEZ. However, seems like we both were proven wrong and my map was correct on this: President Erdogan himself confirmed, on the night of Monday 9 December, the laternal demilitation of the Turkish EEZ towards the Greek islands, through a public broadcast in the Turkish TV. Evidence:

Picture here: [24]. Reliable Source (includes link to a Youtube video of the official broadcast) here: [25].

The lateral delmilitation of the Turkish EEZ towards Greek islands is independent of the Libya deal. However, my map (which you accused for inaccuracies regarding laternal demilitation of Turkish EEZ) was based on WP:RS, and sources which are undoubtely very reliable and Erdogan's broadcasting simply confirmed their reliability. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 12:25, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

I said your map was blatantly false in claiming that the lateral delimitation was effected through the Libya deal. Yes, that was blatantly false. Of course there is an implication that the lateral delimitation is along the outer limits of the Greek territorial waters. That's old news; Turkey has been saying that for years, and it quite directly follows from its long-standing claim that the islands shouldn't have EEZs of their own, which Turkey has clung to for as long as the dispute about continental shelfs has existed, i.e. since the 1970s. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:59, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

I said your map was blatantly false in claiming that the lateral delimitation was effected through the Libya deal.. You said. However my sources said otherwise. Since you were better informed than I was on this, would it be a problem if you provide me these sources of yours? I would really like to check them. Before the map is uploaded, I want to double check on everything and make sure there will be little to no room for others to challenge it again. Just citing reliable sources isn't enough, given how different sources give different info. Something which can be overcomen by simply citing the map the President himself broadcasted. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 13:54, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Changing article title

In recent years, and especially 2018-2019, Turkey's agenda of territorial claims has expanded beyond the geographical limits of the Aegean dispute and now involves a much larger area, stretching to the Greek island of Gavdos (which Turkey claims as Grey Zone since 2010s, yet Gavdos is outside the geographical Aegean Sea) and the Libyan Sea in the south (since November 2019) and to an incident on a Greek island in Maritsa river to the north of the Aegean sea (as of December 2019 albeit this incident is too early to say about, not sure yet). Those who follow the political developments in the region, are already fully aware that Turkey's claims are expanding and growing over the years to the point that they are no longer confined within the Aegean Sea proper.

The new developments in the Aegean and adjacent seas and regions show that while the Aegean dispute initially begun in the Aegean, but now covers a much larger area. This makes the article's title not consistent anymore with the developments and unable to host all the information in it due to the article's title being geographically-defined instead of dispute-oriented.

Today, I have attempted to add a Greek-Turkish incident over a Greek island in Maritsa river (which empties on the northern shoreline of the Aegean Sea), but an editor reverted me [26] on the grounds that the article is about the disputes happening within the geographical Aegean Sea. I am thinking to ask for editorial input over whether we should change the article's title so that it can accomodate developments to the Aegean dispute which however occur around the Aegean and not necessarily within the geographical Aegean sea itself. I do not want to initiate a Move Request before consulting with the editors first and make sure there wont be any problems with that. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 14:21, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

About the Maritsa incident: (a) WP:NOTNEWS. There's no reason we should include this on the very day it supposedly occurred, when the details aren't at all clear yet. (b) We don't even know if this was done by Turkish state agents. Only one of the sources (some local network) claimed it was done by soldiers; other sources have been reporting the actors are unidentified. The photograph shown in some of the news sources seems to be showing a flag hanging loosely in a tree – hardly the way a soldier would "raise" a flag. (c) We don't even know the islet in question is actually Greek. Why would we take some local journalist's claim about that for granted? According to some of the news reports, the islet in question is actually joined to the Turkish bank at low water levels. The international border runs, by definition, in the middle of the river, along its main course. (Of course, as anybody with half an inkling about such matters knows, it's a frequent problem along river borders that rivers change their course, and an islet that once was on one side of the main channel may over time come to be on the other side; in these cases it's always an open question whether the piece of land in question should remain under the jurisdiction it was originally or whether the border should follow the changing course of the river. In the absence of reliable information about the facts on the ground, it's reasonable to assume this might be one of those problematic cases.) (d) The edit that added this [27] was again blatantly mixing factual reporting with political opinion ("Turkey escalated provocations and violated Greece's sovereinghty", in Wikipedia's own voice). I mean, seriously, how difficult can it be to understand that we just f..ing don't do that? Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:19, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

The Evros incident is indeed beyond the scope of this article but can be added to Greece-Turkey relations when the incident is cleared up and we know more. This [28], however, is extremely rude and uncool behavior towards a non-native speaker of English, bordering on bullying. Users can "fiddle" with their own talkpage posts as much as they like, especially to correct grammatical and spelling mistakes that make them look incompetent and unprofessional. Khirurg (talk) 17:13, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Let's keep the threads sorted properly. If you want to discuss that person's behaviour and how to respond or not to respond to it, let's do that somewhere else. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:20, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Well, it's more your behavior I am concerned about, as it has crossed into WP:BULLY. But you are correct about one thing, this is not the place for it, WP:AN/I is. Khirurg (talk) 06:47, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) About a), that's a fair point. About b) according to the sources, they raised a flag using tall trees. Does it matter if the flag is raised on a tree, mast, or building? Some sources say it was soldiers other sources say they are unsure who did it, however, these sources note that there is investigation ongoing, not by the Police, but by the Military (Ελληνικές Δυνάμεις) which is the practice for cross-border violations. About c) All the 10+ sources agree that the incident was done on Loulou, a Greek islet. I can't see how you are questioning the island's sovereignty now. How comes? About d) yes, this was done always according to the sources. If there is a problem with the tone, you can always adjust it. You may find the description of incidents to be political in nature to you, but I don't really care. Nor I do mind your adjustments to the tones, as you probably noticed, however, I would appreciate if you act more and complain less about that. Regarding (Of course, as anybody with half an inkling about such matters knows, it's a frequent problem along river borders that rivers change their course, and an islet that once was on one side of the main channel may over time come to be on the other side; in these cases it's always an open question whether the piece of land in question should remain under the jurisdiction it was originally or whether the border should follow the changing course of the river. In the absence of reliable information about the facts on the ground, it's reasonable to assume this might be one of those problematic cases.). I am afraid this is not the case. The Maritsa/Evros border is defined not by the river himself but by actual borders, independent of the river's course, borders which often go across farmlands and this leaves no room for misunderstandings: [29][30].

However, I should clarify something in case it isn't clear here: The incidents (Grey zones, islands, EEZ, etc) cannot be isolated from each other and the rest of the Aegean dispute and be spread into multiple articles, as they are all part of the same policy of the Turkish government for challenging Greek rights in the area. For example, the incident at Maritsa/Evros river happened some days after the Libya-Turkey deal was signed, and it happened the same day as Turkey conducted an overflight above a Greek island of Rho which was never disputed by Turkey in the past: [31] (this time the overflight is confirmed: they really flew above Rho), and two days after a Turkish minister threatened Greece that war is an option "if necessary" for the sake of safeguarding Turkey's newly claimed territories south of Crete: [32], and 1 day after the Turkish President threatened that he will make sure "Greece will pay the price" for opposing the Libya-Turkey deal: [33]. No serious editor believes that everything happening (or said) lately is unrelated to each other, and these incidents need to be regarded as being part of the same policy. It started with Imia, expanded to 100+ more islands, expanded with Mavi Vatan, and now even islets in Evros. Now, simply separating all of them across multiple articles just because of the current title, is a disservice at best. Moving the "Aegean dispute" to "Greece-Turkey disputes" (where Aegean dispute can have its own section in it), is a far more viable option and should be considered. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 18:28, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm just going to respond to the question about the boundary definition (the rest being waffle, as usual): The Evros boundary was defined in the Treaty of Lausanne as following "the median line of the waterway or of its principal branch" (except for one small, delineated Turkish exclave on the western bank). The treaty explicitly adds that "It will rest with the Boundary Commission to specify whether the frontier line shall follow any changes of the course or channel which may take place, or whether it shall be definitely fixed by the position of the course or channel at the time when the present Treaty comes into force" [34]. I haven't been able to find out yet which of the two options was chosen by that commission, but a study from the 1960s [35] still describes the border as being along the main channel. It would be interesting to find out how exactly this is to be reconciled with the status of that island near Prangi, but well, it's probably not for this page anyway. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:45, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Calling the developments a waffle, reminds me how you treated the Mavi Vatan as a waffle once I tried to contact you through your talk page, months ago, Future Perfect. Look at us now. Some months later, it is happening in front of our eyes and we even see it escalating beyond the Aegean. Are you calling it still a waffle? I don't think so. You may not want to believe me or the others, but the WP:RS is WP:RS: there is no point to deny what is happening these days between Turkey and Greece. The question is: Do we really want this dispute to stretch across multiple articles when it is one and the same thing? The usual practice in Wikipedia is to group incidents related to a dispute, into a single large article for everyone to read comfortably and get the full picture of what is happening. And when I say the full picture, I do mean the whole dispute and its braches, together in one article. Still the Mavi Vatan is relatively new in the regional politics, sure, but if the Aegean dispute keeps the current trend, and incidents keep showing up on separate locations which are near the Aegean sea but not within it, then this has to be considered. In case you didn't realize, the overflights above Farmaconisi, Chios and other Aegean islands, sure do fit under this article's geographical name, but the overflights above Kastellorizo and Rho dont. These islands aren't even in the Aegean Sea. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 23:26, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Crete

@Khirurg, Future Perfect at Sunrise, Alexikoua, TU-nor, Dr.K., and Calthinus: I am not sure how many of you are following the East Mediterranean developments, but as I am writing this, we already had new developments, which were confirmed by WP:RS such Kathimerini [36] and Ethnos [37]. (The new developments are also confirmed on the Turkish side as well, both by Turkish newspapers and various news portal sites, as well as the official State-owned Anadolu Agency which reflects the Turkish Government's positions and views). If what these sources and the Anadolu Agency say are true, Turkey is revisiting and expanding its claims to include the -previously undisputed- island of Crete, Greece's largest and most populous island. A map with the new Turkish claims can be found here: [38] Furthermore, the Turkish side already announced publicly, this week, that they are taking an initiative through NGOs to bring the case to the International Court of Hague, demanding that 3/4 of Crete's territory is returned to Turkey (the claims include the Rethymnon, Heraklion and Lassithi prefectures with only Chania left out) on the grounds that Greece violated a London Treaty which entitles Turkey the right to demand border changes from Greece. Per sources.

I am taking these news with alots of grain, as Turkey is undergoing difficult turbulent financial times, with its nationalist government trying to distract the public attention from its economic woes by igniting tensions with neighbors, which is a popular tactic allowing the government to survive. However, the aforementioned WP:RS have been proven correct about the Blue Homeland so there may be more to the claims on Crete than just smoke for domestic purposes. I pinged you now because we can't escape forever the need to discuss about an article move. The recent years' developments, have made clear that the current article title is problematic and does not reflect on the disputes raised by Turkey, which are no longer confined geographically to the Aegean Sea proper. A more inclusive article title is needed.

And in case anyone was wondering: Crete isn't an Aegean island. It is surrounded by several seas, with the Aegean Sea being limited only to its northern shores; the Levantine Sea is to the east and southeast, the Libyan Sea to the south and southwest, and the Kythera Straits & Ionian Sea to the west. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 16:10, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

That's a very good catch SR! I believe Crete can be considered part of the Aegean in a wider definition .Alexikoua (talk) 18:14, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

There is of course no indication whatsoever that these ridiculous assertions are shared by the Turkish government. The AA article (which Kathimerini and Ethnos are simply paraphrasing) is about some people from the lunatic fringe of Turkish nationalism). The very idea that some private NGOs could possibly open "international court cases" against a sovereign country at the International Court of The Hague is so absurd it's really not worth further notice. The map SR linked to comes from another known lunatic, Ümit Yalım [39], who's been active previously with developing the fake news about the dozens of islands "recently occupied" by Greece. The story about Turkish claims on Crete seems to also ultimately come from there. The story goes like that: in the London Treaty of 1913, Turkey ceded Crete not to Greece but to the allied powers of the Balkan wars together (Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro). Yalım invents the argument that this means each of these powers got one quarter of Crete, and when three of them didn't subsequently claim their parts, these parts didn't become part of Greece but silently returned to Turkey. Yalım gets points for inventivenes for that, I suppose. But the main point in all of this is, of course, that Yalım and most of the others who have been spreading the same map and the same claims do so with the explicit aim of attacking the Turkish government (just as it was also the case with the earlier claims about "occupied" islands). Yalım's article is titled "Türk Dışişleri bakanlığı'ndan büyük skandal!" ('a big scandal from the Turkish foreign ministry'), and it's all about the Turkish government's treacherous lack of patriotism in failing to pursue these claims. So, the very people who are peddling that nonsense are explicitly confirming that official Turkey isn't in fact making those claims. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:51, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

I really hope you are right but its unlikely, IMO. As you see, Ümit Yalım holds high profile positions in the Turkish government, among others as the Secretary General of the Turkish Ministry of Defense and as the advicer of the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Defence Affairs, a position he still holds to this day. His career shows that he is part of Turkey's official elite, not a member of a lunatic minority.

EDIT: what you say about Yalim's criticism against the Turkish Foreign Ministry, I have numerous RS claiming that there is a rivalry between Mevlut Cavusoglu on the one side, and Hulusi Akar on the other side, for the control of the Turkish foreign policy. Umit Yalim is a person of the Turkish Defence Ministry, I wouldnt be surprised if his criticism is part of all this. But certainly it shouldn't be perceived as criticism to his own government and the President he is serving.

Here is the article published these days about the low-profile "war" between the Turkish Ministers of Defence and Foreign Affairs: [40]--- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 20:25, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

On the HaberHabere article I linked to, from April 2019, Yalım signs as "Milli Savunma Bakanlığı eski Genel Sekreteri", i.e. former ('eski') General Secretary of the Ministry of Defense. This [41] site says he had that office between 2009 and 2010 and then went into retirement. He's been publicly agitating against the Erdogan government (not just the foreign ministry) for years as far as I can tell. BTW, since when are holding high profile positions in the Turkish government and being a lunatic mutually exclusive properties? Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:49, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

I am really happy you are acknowledging the lunatics they are. You have my apologies for doubting you in the past. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 21:14, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

SilentResident interesting, I do wonder how Yalim decides his readers need to be educated about the loss of Crete when Turkey has 50x the number of covid cases as Greece and counting, but who knows. This is probably related [42], my OR, I am not advocating adding it to the page at this time. But don't worry, Turkish politicians know they should instead be working on making sure their voters blame the "right" people [43]. Personal opinions aside, I wonder if this should simply just be "Greece-Turkey border disputes". Were disputes in Thrace to appear, would we really think they're a separate topic from this? As for inclusion of this, I'd wait until other (non Greek/Turkish) media picks up the story -- which they probably will if this stance gains a following in Turkey.--Calthinus (talk) 22:10, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Agree, I believe the roots of the disputes (Aegean Dispute, Armenian Genocide Denial, Kurdish Dispute, Cyprus Dispute, etc) to lie at the false perception among the Turkish elites that a bigger Turkey (in terms of territorial size or population size) would automatically solve the country's many endemic problems such as poverty. That a bigger control of the Mediterranean Sea, the Balkans and the Middle East would also improve Turkey's standing and leverage in the international diplomatic arena. That by exercising violence against its Kurdish minority, would improve peace and security at home. Unfortunately nothing has worked thus far, hence why the elite failed and goes crazier: first Imia, then Farmakonisi and now Crete. It seems like none has explained to Yalim the famous Liechtenstein vs Russia and China cases, where a tiny country (both in terms of population and territory) is hundreds of times wealthier and happier than the largest and the most populous countries in the world. So bigger isn't always better. There is only one way for Turkey's expansionist policies (incl. the Aegean Dispute) to end once and for all: by addressing the issues of poor education, poverty and unemployment, reducing the influence of nationalism and extremism among the Turkish populace. Countries with traditionally good living standards, are usually more reliable neighbors and better sources of regional stability, maintaining friendlier bilateral relations with their neighbors.

I have many reliable sources explaining the Turkish government's poor human rights records and hostile stance against its neighbors, particularly Syria, Greece, Armenia and Cyprus, and how this relate to the domestic problems it is facing from within. I would like to add them someday to Wikipedia. Right now I am lacking the motivation to contribute to Wikipedia in such a large scale.

A move to "Greece-Turkey border disputes" can be a good step in the right direction, as it is more inclusive. IMO, even better can be the: "Greece-Turkey disputes" as not every one of the disputes covered in the present article are exactly "border" disputes. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 23:43, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Restructuring

Conflicting claims to EEZ/Continental Shelf areas in the Eastern Mediterranean between Greece, Turkey and Cyprus

I'm going to restructure the new sections to clean up the rather chaotic and overlong additions made recently. If we're going to deal with the delimitation issues outside the Aegean proper, which I think we may well do even if it's a bit outside the nominal scope of the article, then we should still stick to the established structure of this article, focussing on the geographical and legal facts rather than on the sensationalist, news-style day-to-day account of "he said this", "he said that". So the treatment of the Turkish EEZ claims in the eastern Mediterranean should go into a subsection of the current "Continental shelf" section (which should be renamed "Continental shelf and Exclusive Economic Zones"). This should be sourced predominantly to the academic legal literature rather than to daily news sources.

The section about the concept of "Mavi Vatan" should then streamlined and reduced radically, to a treatment of what that concept actually is and a very brief summary of political events in 2019.

This will also counteract the misunderstanding, caused by the sensationalist treatment in the Greek news sources, that the recent Turkish claims in that area are somehow new and unprecedented. For the most part, they have been around all the time since the 1970s, when Turkey first attempted to grant oil drilling licenses in the area between Rhodes and Kastellorizo. The only thing that's new is that Turkey has now formally submitted precise geographical coordinates delimiting the area it claims, and continued that specification into the area west of 28°E, i.e. the triangle south of Rhodes and south-east of Crete. The arguments underlying that claim (i.e. median lines between continents only, no EEZ for islands, "equity" based on length of continental coastlines) have been unchanged since forever.

There's also one point in our previous treatment of the legal situation, where we have been saying that in terms of the treatment of islands, Greece "has the UN Law of the Sea on its side". This needs to be qualified somewhat more: While it is of course true that according to the international norms islands do, in principle, generate EEZ claims of their own, and Turkey's stance of completely denying that is indeed quite isolated internationally, there's also the fact that the treatment of islands is not automatic and absolute. There are numerous precedents set by the ICJ where individual islands have been discounted (partly of fully) from the determination of EEZ areas when they would otherwise have unduly encroached on the maritime zones generated by neighboring continental land masses. There's been substantial discussion in the international academic literature about how these precedent cases would likely be applicable to some parts of the Greek–Turkish delimitation, most notably in the case of Kastellorizo. So we'll probably need to be careful not to present some of the Turkish demands, such as the discounting of Kastellorizo, as if they were completely arbitrary and isolated from international law – some of them happen not to be.

I'll try to get hold of some of the relevant literature next week when I have a chance to get to a library again. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:48, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Regarding Kastellorizo any changes must rely on sources that specifically mention Kastellorizo, i.e. we can't have a situation where we have a source that says something about some islands somewhere and we say in wikipedia that this applies to Kastellorizo; that would be original research. The position of major players (EU, US, Russia, Israel, etc.) on the Turkey-Libya "deal" should also be mentioned. Regarding the map, a) land borders should be shown (e.g. Egypt/Libya), b) the Gaza EEZ is incorrect, c) Cyprus has signed bilateral deals (that do not violate international law) with Egypt, Israel, and Lebanon, and d) Greece hasn't claimed an EEZ, so technically the Greek EEZ in the map is not a "claim". Khirurg (talk) 21:50, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

About Kastellorizo: Yes, obviously, needless to say. Reactions to the Turkey-Libya deal: sure, briefly. Land borders: I didn't have a vector set handy for drawing them automatically, and they are fairly insignificant in this context, but sure, I can try adding something when I find the time. Gaza boundary: that one was taken from http://www.marineregions.org/eezmapper.php, what's incorrect about it? About Greek EEZ: yes, technically Greece hasn't declared an EEZ, only a continental shelf delimitation, stating that the EEZ, "once declared", will follow the same line. That distinction is for the captions/description to clarify. (By the way, if Greece doesn't have an EEZ, our article on EEZ#Greece is incorrect.) About distinguishing bilaterally agreed-upon boundaries from others: I was considering trying to do that via different line styles but didn't in the end go through with that. Maybe I'll experiment some further. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:29, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Hello can you place this map to Turkish military intervention in the Second Libyan Civil War on "Turkey-Libya maritime deal" section and maybe add some info? Thanks. Beshogur (talk) 04:19, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Foreign reactions

The page is lacking this. Especially after the (related) declaration about Libya, concern from other parties has crystallized as of lately.

Six days ago Israel broke its silence and supported Greece's position officially (Reuters [[44]]). This was the first official statement, but the foreign ministry had earlier on Twitter indicated Israel's support for the Greek position [[45]] (this is Ekatherimini I acknowledge, but the tweet can be accessed). The former Israeli ambassador M.Harari to Cyprus (see here [[46]], not the same man as the other Michael Harari, who is dead) a bit earlier had written up this in Haaretz, calling for Israel to support Greece and Cyprus [[47]]. Another part of the Israeli response is this pipeline deal with Greece and Cyprus [[48]]. I may be back with sources as relevant for the stances of Egypt, Italy, etc. Let me know if there is a green light to add this. My intention (despite past outside squabbles) is not to fight here, or to exacerbate any existing whatevers. Cheers, --Calthinus (talk) 20:36, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Its sourced via RS, makes sense to account for it in the article.Resnjari (talk) 23:13, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

I agree. Dr. K. 02:21, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Cool, will add in a bit.--Calthinus (talk) 02:25, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

It's fine, although I think Israel is already briefly mentioned. But more detail wouldn't hurt I guess. Khirurg (talk) 04:42, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

NPOV on "Libya" (Tobruk/Tripoli issues, civil war)

This page refers to the GNA as "Libya". Well the GNA sure thinks so. Haftar, who controls most of the territory, does not. I don't think the GNA's Tripoli government nor Haftar's Tobruk government has a different view. Referring to the Tripoli government not as "Libya" but as the GNA is not my invention; news media does it too (example [[49]]). If there's no objections I will gradually phase out "Libya" on the page in favor of "GNA" and "Tripoli" where appropriate. --Calthinus (talk) 06:03, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

This is especially important as Haftar's government in Tobruk -- which actually controls most of the oil -- is against the agreement. --Calthinus (talk) 06:25, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Great work, and thank you, and I agree with replacing "Libya" with "GNA" and "Tripoli". However I do think the last two paragraphs of the "international reaction" section are somewhat beyond the scope of this article. The reactions of the LNA and Egypt are sufficiently covered by the first paragraph I think. Khirurg (talk) 07:20, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

I also feel the paragraph on the Israeli response could use some trimming, in particular the sentence about Israel being cut off from international waters. While notable, it is beyond the scope of the article. This is a rapidly evolving topic, and I concerned about bloat. Khirurg (talk) 07:25, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Regarding the signing of the EastMed pipeline, that should have a separate subsection, and we should wait till January 2, when the deal will actually be signed. Khirurg (talk) 07:30, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Scope

Khirurg Libya–Turkey maritime agreement redirects here, perhaps unfortunately. If you read Keith Johnson's analysis in FP -- senior geopolitical commentator -- the take is that the matter has metastasized into a Turkish ploy to either force its way into "Club Med" and/or assert dominance over the entire East Mediterranean. The "Aegean" aspect of the dispute would only be one part of that. I come from this more from a "Levantine" POV, that's true, but I'd like to request that as long as extra-Aegean aspects of this dispute are not covered on a separate page, this should be the place where they can be covered. In my view, Turkish attempts to extend its borders "all the way to Derna and Tobruk's coasts" (Daily Sabah), while in the scope of "Aegean", are def in the cope of "Turkey-Libya maritime accord"; likewise, the expulsion of the Israeli research vessel (Bat Galim) from Cypriot waters is also outside the Aegean but part of the same dispute (though perhaps it should be in its own section ultimately?). As for where the material should go ultimately, I don't know if this page should be expanded, or there should be a Libyan subpage, or what. Thoughts? --Calthinus (talk) 14:17, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Point taken, but I'm starting to think that Libya–Turkey maritime agreement might need its own article. Haven't decided yet, wondering what others think. Khirurg (talk) 19:01, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Hello Turkey officially did start moving troops to Libya. I made Turkish involvement in the Libyan Civil War article. Feel free to expand Turkish_involvement_in_the_Libyan_Civil_War#Turkey-Libya_maritime_deal section. Beshogur (talk) 22:06, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Accession date picture

I am genuinely confused over why this is relevant. I'm going to assume it's not which islands got retaken from the Ottomans first that matters, so maybe its those ceded from Italy in 1947 (??). If so, perhaps it would help to put something in the caption explaining why this matters? Although I'm a dumbdumb, I'm sure readers might find it helpful too. --Calthinus (talk) 06:28, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Looks like I added this back in 2007 [50], together with the other map below it. I honestly don't remember too well why I did it this way, but I guess the idea was to give some background information about why different groups of islands have different status with respect to demilitarization etc. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:15, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Yeah fair, I can relate. Khirurg clearly you think it is relevant. I'm not against having it. Could you explain its relevance succinctly in a caption, possibly? Right now it is just confusing to anyone who is not functionally Greek or maybe Turkish.--Calthinus (talk) 16:29, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Overflights at "Makronisi"?

A recent addition ([51], sourced to [52] and [53]) lists "Makronisi" (or "Macronisi") among the "inhabited" islands affected by recent Turkish overflights. Which island is this? Google Maps knows of half a dozen islets called "Makronisi", apart from the better-known Makronisos of Attica: one at the southern tip of Arkoi, one south of Leipsoi, one south of Fournoi, one north of Kasos, one off the south-eastern coast of Paros. All of them are tiny and apparently uninhabited. Our article on List of Aegean Islands also claims there's another one somewhere in the North Aegean (but its name is mis-linked to the Makronisos of Attica and there's no further explanation there). Except the one at Paros, all would seem plausible candidates for Turkish overflights, but which one is meant in that news article? Without clarification, I don't see much value in mentioning it in the article. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:31, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Reorganization and section order.

@Calthinus:: Hi, it came to my attention that re-organizing the article and moving a certain section around, has caused a problem with another section.

Specifically, the section titled "Turkey-Libya maritime agreement" and the section "Further Developments" go together. Yet, the first one was moved around while the latter was not, breaking the proper order of the events / flow of information.

As result, now the readers read first about Greece's response to the Agreement and then about the Agreement which prompted Greece's response. Any suggestions? --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 13:52, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi SilentResident. To be honest, I find the organization of this article a bit confusing (why is Frontex its own section? Shouldn't the discussion of the continental shelf be under "territorial waters"? But idk.) To Greek readers perhaps it makes sense. To me, at least, it seems to adhere to multiple different organization strategies at once making it... confusing. Additionally, as I noted earlier, the scope of this article seems unclear -- perhaps its name should be Aegean disputes, plural. So given my confusion about all this, and that my attempt to help earlier was not appreciated, I'm not sure I could be of use -- but feel free to move things around as you like, just as long as there remains some mention of the relevance to Levantine countries here (Israel, Egypt, Lebanon, etc) of the Libya deal. Cheers, --Calthinus (talk) 15:53, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

@Calthinus: Nor do I know how the article came to be named Aegean Dispute when it is not a dispute about the Aegean Sea at core. I guess when the article was created, everyone thought that the Aegean Sea is, at core, a legal dispute between 2 countries and nothing else. Now 20+ years later, I believe it has becoming increasingly clear to more and more editors here that the Aegean Sea isn't a legal problem per se, is just a political symptom of the Turkish domestic affairs (FYI, the Turkish Nationalism traditionally has a strong presence in the country, with both the government and the opposition parties playing the patriots and competing with each other about who claims more Greek islands than the others - Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the main opposition party CHP claims 18 Greek islands and calls Erdogan and his AKP party "traitors" for not "sending the Turkish army to take these islands back").

Turkey's traditionally turbulent domestic affairs have been translated into traditionally turbulent foreign relations with most of its neighbors. The country's domestic insecurities (among others) have affected not only the country's democratic backsliding, its mistreatment of journalists, political opponents and the christian/ethnic minorities and the rise of authoritarianism for the sake of "safety and security", but also has affected the country's foreign relations negatively, but this wasn't explored in the article at all. This in turn, makes the article non-neutral and unfair for Greece since it gives the world the false impression that the Aegean dispute's core is a legal one and not a political one. The article misses the chance to inform the readers that the Aegean dispute is merely one of multiple problems dominating the Turkish foreign policy, as it does misses the chance to inform the readers that the turkish claims are increasing over time: in 1996, Ankara claimed just 2 Aegean islands of which the sovereignty never challenged in the past. This changed to 4, then 16 and so on. A newspaper close to the Turkish government and the TAF, Sozcu, raised the number to 200 Greek islands. In recent years, Ankara begun claiming even islands that are situated outside the Aegean Sea proper, such as the Greek island of Gavdos in the Libyan Sea. Of course these claims have nothing legal to them but the article avoids mentioning it for the sake of neutrality.

All these problems are part of the country's ambitious policies in the broader region which, in the last years, have simply been escalated to the point of becoming clearer even to those editors unfamiliar to it: the sovereignty challenges aren't limited to Greece but extend as far east as Cyprus and more recently, Syria and Iraq.

IMO, its wrong to tackle the Aegean dispute(s) as something unrelated to Ankara's domestic and foreign policies in the region. If one looks at the map, can easily see how the disputes do start in the Aegean Sea but are not limited to: Greece (island sovereignty, waters, airspace control, turkish minority), Cyprus (occupied territory, waters, airspace, democraphic alteration of the island), Syria (Water flow of rivers in Syria reduced due to Turkish dams, territory disputes, kurdish demographic alteration, control of airspace), Bulgaria (Turkish minority) Armenia (Denial of Armenian Genocide, tensions in Nagorno Karabakh), Egypt (Muslim Brotherhood). Libya (Muslim Brotherhood), Iraq (Turkish Army's incursions), Israel (control of Mosques, Hamas) and the West (Human rights, discrimination against Ecumenical Patriarchate, NATO relations and purchase of Russian missiles) Russia (Turkish Tatar minority and Crimea) have one thing in common: Turkey.

Just, it is that this particular article used to cover the Aegean Dispute as if it was just an isolated dispute between two countries limited to Aegean Sea and from a legal perspective, instead of for what it really is: a political one. So yes, I do believe the article name needs to be changed to become more inclusive, and the article needs to be reorganized, but these are not the only problems the article is having. I know you will say this is Encyclopedia and that mentioning these facts about Turkey's domestic/external policies will require careful wording accompanied with strong sources, but I don't believe that can be a problem to achieve. Edit: I am not surprised that you felt your contributions to this article being unappreciated. I too did felt exactly the same (I even have explicitly mentioned that I felt this way, on this very talk page in the past). Personally, I appreciate alot your contributions here. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 22:22, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Hmm. Well I do agree that at least the current dispute very much draws in Israel, Egypt etc, and yes has to do with Israel, Egypt being increasingly uncomfortable with Erdogan's perceived... ambitions. Armenia not so much (Nagorno Karabakh aka Artsakh is much more an ex-Soviet issue involving also Russia's "near abroad", Iran siding with Armenia, Israel's strategic relationship with Azerbaijan *coughaboutIrancough*... etc.), Kurdistan more tangentially. Yes, Turkish politicians are rather fond of competing for who is more "patriotic" (classic populist appeal) -- RS saying this in analysis could be useful, we can agree here (I do) but as it goes for the mainspace, its more comfortable when its RS that make that call. I am really unsure as to the proper scope of this page, but I do wonder, how do RS frame the matter? I believe the analysis I've read from Scha(e?)ffer and Johnson would more imply that the point at which Turkey/Greece issues got linked to Turkey/Israel and Turkey/Egypt (they already were linked to Turkey/Cyprus, of course) was fairly recent, i.e. very much to do with (a) the oil pipeline and (b) Turkey backing the Islamists in Libya. Or, one could say, Turkey/Egypt issues (over the Second Libyan Civil War) metastasised to draw in Greece, since before late 2019 Greece was playing less of a role in Libya. Perhaps I would very weakly propose discussing such matters as the "newest phase" of the topic. Greece/Turkey issues are longer lived than Turkey/Egypt, so the earlier "phases" can be the Greece/Turkey matter, while Turkey/Egypt can be a one paragraph background section. It does require some thought, and I'd certainly be interested in gathering more expert analyses (FP, etc etc) here for guidance. --Calthinus (talk) 03:38, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Calthinus: Also before I forget it - you were right that the deal is signed by GNA and not the entirety of Libya. Now the deal's name in the article has been corrected to reflect these facts. [54] Thank you, as this should help avoid misleading readers into believing that support by GNA means support by Libya as whole. When you pointed out at this, I was too busy in real life to notice this mistake. At least, better late than never. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 00:13, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Appreciated. As I said, lmk if you find more RS analysis that we can use to reorganize the page. --Calthinus (talk) 23:09, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

No RS is needed: it was a simple issue which was generated when you moved some sections around. To solve it, your reorganization was undone. Now the sections are back to their previous and proper chronological order: (Mavi Vatan -> Turkey-GNA deal -> Further developments). --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 06:09, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure I follow, but I have no issues. --Calthinus (talk) 20:38, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Turkish soldiers shooting at Greek and German officials at Evros/Maritsa border

In the past month, we had incidents where Turkish soldiers shot at Greek officials at the Evros/Maritsa border, which is unusual among NATO allies. However, I haven't brought the matter to Wikipedia, as I wasn't certain whether it was an isolated incident or a new form of provocations by Turkey. It seems it is the latter, as we had one more incident, just yesterday on 30 April 2020 where Turkish soldiers aimed at German and Greek Frontex officials who were patrolling at the Greek side of the Evros/Maritsa border and shot them. There were no injuries but the incident draw (once more) widespread media attention, this time both in Greece and abroad, with German, Russian and Greek news media reporting about it, and the German Federal Ministry of Interior, the Greek Interior Ministry, Frontex and Greek Border officials confirming it. Sources: Der Spiegel:[55] Zeit.de:[56] Sputnik: [57] Kathimerini: [58] These serious incidents coincide with Turkey's new practice of challenging Greece's sovereignty by conducting overflights above the Greek mainland near Evros/Maritsa. Any ideas how to add this information to the article? --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 07:01, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Stop it at last. Again, this is evidently not the Aegean dispute. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:11, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

You can't hide behind article names to argue whether new developments are added or not to Wikipedia. Like it or not, the content is evidently part of the same policy by Ankara, as is the rest: Shooting at soldiers, ramming ships, violating airspace, challenging sovereignty, pushing immigrants, disputing FIR, and more. It is all about the same policy by the same perpetrator against the usual target, no matter how you baptise it.

Of course the present article will soon or later be in need for a move to to a more inclusive title to reflect on the new political reality in the region which spread the tensions from the Aegan towards Evros to the north, Libya to the southwest and Kastellorizo to the southeast. In meantime the info can be added to the Germany-Turkey relations and Greece-Turkey relations articles without requiring an article move but personally I would prefer all the info concentrated into a single article like the current one instead of spreading it out into multiple articles. Btw, good thing I am not hearing from you the usual "I don't trust Greek media" crap. How comes? Perhaps because the German and even the Russian media joined the chorus, heh? --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 08:33, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

As a general rule, Russian media is not useful. --Calthinus (talk) 20:37, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

We already have an article suited for covering other areas of conflict: Greek–Turkish relations. That article has a section about the Aegean dispute, where this article is quoted as "Main article". That is a standard structure of Wiki articles. If a content area is too big to fit in the overview article, we make a specific article about that theme. It is then generally a bad idea to include other content areas in the same article. --T*U (talk) 12:39, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Noted. Since the military attacks keep repeating as we speak, 3 more incidents occured these days, bringing the total number of Turkish armed attacks against Greece from 2 to 5; with the 5th incident reportedly occuring yesterday [59] on 6 May 2020, just a day after the Ministry of Citizen Protection (Greece) visited the same area, I have become confident that this is a new policy adopted by Turkey and not a mere isolated large row of cases / coincidences.

It is then generally a bad idea to include other content areas in the same article. however, thing is, between Greece and Turkey there are no other active military-crade disputes besides the ones already covered in the Aegean Dispute article. It is hard to assume that these military incidents are unrelated to the military disputes between the two countries covered in this article. That's the rationale in Wikipedia. For example, military incidents which still happen in Cyprus, do not go to Cyprus-Turkey Relations article but to the Cyprus Dispute article. Shouldnt the same be done here as well? --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 04:14, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Update There was a very serious escalation of tensions between Turkey and Greece these days, when the Turkish Army invaded Greece and occupied Greek territory on Evros and refuses to retreat from the occupied territory. I assume any editors who may read the international and Greek news about this invasion, may be wondering where in Wikipedia to add the new content; right now there isn't an appropriate article for that kind of developments. The Aegean Dispute article here is the only article covering the Turkish-Greece disputes thus far, and due to Ankara's aggressive and expansionist policies, it extended beyond the Aegean proper and already includes info about Kastellorizo, Mavi Vatan, East Med pipeline, and so on. If Evros information has to fit somewhere, this article here is the correct one, despite its exclusive title. Prior to yesterday's military invasion against Greece, there were Turkish overflights above greek territories in Evros and that is already covered in the article. However the military invasion and the Turkish military shootouts against Greek and German officers may require their own section in the article. Kathimerini is a very reliable source [60] and the incident has also been verified by english sources as well: [61][62] --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 13:27, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

The Greek government has repeatedly denied that Turkish military have been on Greek territory. Kathimerini. --T*U (talk) 16:48, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

@TU-nor: Thanks. I just came to report the same as you. For the story, the United Kingdom's media were the first to report that there was a Turkish invasion on Greece, and the Greek media took the bait and shortly thereafter reproduced them (citing explicitly these UK media as their source). However, these UK reports were repeatedly denied by the Greek government, which called them "Fake news". The local authorities at Evros, as well as journalists who are reporting directly from the field, confirmed them to be indeed fake news. On the other hand, the Turkish government made no effort to deny these Fake news. It rather chose to fuel them, with the Turkish government stating that there was some kind of (unspecified) violation at Evros and that Turkey "took the necessary measures" to deal with it, which leaves open room for misperceptions: [63].

Unfortunately, Turkey's government and the pro-government media are notorious for their Fake news, a trend that has become ingreasingly prominent, especially after the 2013 Gezi Park protests against Tayyip Erdogan's government and a Turkish Court's attempted investigation against Erdogan's family members for corruption and off-shore wealth at tax heavens. This happens at a period the Turkish government has a record number of jailed journalists, (the highest in the world, surpassing even China), and the country ranks among the worst (154th position in the 2020 Press Freedom Index), and amid an ongoing Erdogan-instigated campaign to silence Turkey's remaining independent journalists and newspapers, which, IMO, is a shark contrast to Greece's 65th position in 2020, which has improved considerably from the 91th position in 2015, as Greek journalism is becoming increasingly free and independent. Only for the year 2020, we had the following fake news in/from Turkey: From blaming the Coronavirus outbreak on Jews, and accusing the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew as being a partner of Fetullah Gullen and being behind the 2016 failed coup against Erdogan, to presenting Turkish colognes as effective measure against Covid infection, to accusing France, UAE, Greece and Egypt of forming an "Axis of Evil" [sic] in East Med, to claiming that 100.000 migrants entered Europe and more.

This incident with Evros is the first time the fake news were able to get through the fact-checking filters in their way to UK first and subsequently to Greece. Due to this, the Greek journalists are criticizing the Greek government and are asking from it to improve its communication strategy and act more swiftly against fake news in the future: [64]. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 09:20, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

To "SilentResident": I have no skin in this game. I just happened here. But I think you have to moderate soapboxing your own anti-Turkish memes. It's one thing to say "We must guard against fake news" ...it is entirely another to accuse (via an opinion) that "Turkey's government and the pro-government media are notorious". It's not helpful and actually devalues what you are trying to say. While it's obvious you don't like Turkey (as a sovereign legal entity) I just hope it is not a deeper-driven view fueled by anti-Turk racism and xenophobia...Else, I think you should declare it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.174.99.213 (talk) 13:12, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

To "SilentResident": You say Turkey was "blaming the Coronavirus outbreak on Jews". That's like saying because a member of the British Labour party makes an anti-Israel statement (or how ever one wishes to classify it) means that BRITAIN has done so. These are outrageous assertions to make and confirm your very deeply held animus. I don't think that has any place in editing objectively an article over the subject matter here. As I said, it is clear you hate the Turkish Country, but what is is not clear is whether you are driven by a deeper motivation. Finally, to add balance, perhaps there may be reasons why "street level" Turkish opinion does not like the Israeli government: you do recall the Turkish attempts to take humanitarian aid to Gaza via ship? You do recall that outcome. But no matter, your colouring of matters over recent news regarding a few unguarded comments about Israel, has no place here. Let alone, you fail to comprehend that when Jews were being persecuted for centuries in Christian Europe, where did many of them go? Istanbul. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C8:3D03:D300:ECD8:7135:D553:98FF (talk) 11:51, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Article 15 vs. Article 51

Section Islands#Lesbos, Chios, Samos, and Ikaria speaks of "Article 15"of the Charter of the UN. This makes no sense as Article 15 concerns the rights of the General Assembly:

• “1. The General Assembly shall receive and consider annual and special reports from the Security Council; these reports shall include an account of the measures that the Security Council has decided upon or taken to maintain international peace and security. 2. The General Assembly shall receive and consider reports from the other organs of the United Nations.” [65]

This is due to an error in the source that wrote:

• "This state of affairs, in conjunction with the threat of a casus belli should Greece extend her territorial waters to 12 nautical miles as is her legal entitlement, coupled with a more general revisionist tendency in Turkey concerning International Treaties determining the status of the Aegean, oblige Greece to be in a state of preparedness such as will allow her if needs be to exercise her right to legitimate defence, as provided for in Article 15 of the United Nations Charter and to protect the Greek islands of the Aegean." (Emphasis mine) [66]

They clearly meant the right to self defense that is enshrined in Article 51 of the UN-Charter:

• “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.” [67]

I edited this section but it was undoed, therefore I am writing this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dete-Rakete (talk • contribs) 10:50, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Greek EEZ map

I have an issue with the caption of this map here, "Greek Exclusive Economic Zone according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea". I'm not even sure that this is semantically correct. The map essentially corresponds to the automatic application of the equidistance principle, and defines the maximum surface the UNCLOS' methodology can allocate to Greece. The sentence basically implies that, let's say, an appropriate agent, has intepreted the law and analyzed the specific circumstances so as to decide that the priciples of equitability and propotionality, among other things, are properly quantified and no further changes are needed. I assume that the Greek government, alone, can act as the aforementioned appropriate agent. But, even if it has made this decision and considers it to have current effect, which i'm not sure it has, the caption is still a bit problematic IMO. You can't attribute this result to the UNCLOS without implying that there is only one way the UNCLOS can be intepreted/applied. Any thoughts? GroGaBa (talk) 19:24, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. I quite agree. This map and its caption was only recently added, without discussion, by a highly inexperienced user. The proper thing to do will be to replace it with a different map that shows the conflicting/overlapping claims by both parties, as in File:Eastern Mediterranean EEZ conflicts.svg. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:49, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

The Lausanne Treaty

The initial status-quo of the Aegean Dispute between Greece and Turkey was the Lausanne Treaty. It should also be mentioned in the page.Gundoganfa (talk) 22:46, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Source on US-Turkey ties a WP:CrystalBall?

I am not 100% sure but I am wondering if the following source from Balkan Insight: [68] which I added here: [69] falls actually into WP:CRYSTALBALL? Reading the source, it gives the impression the issue which is affecting the US-Turkey ties isn't something new which begins with the new Biden presidency, but something that has already affected these relations. However I may be wrong on this and I would like to be corrected. In that case I will remove the source. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 13:31, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Tag-team reverts

The material that's being reverted back in here [70]is still massively misrepresented and misleading.

Of the various statements quoted from Erdogan, the ones made in the context of his 2017 visit to Athens [71] are clearly not referring to territorial provisions of the Lausanne Treaty, but to its rules about minorities. The other statement from 2016 cited here [72] ("At Lausanne, we gave up islands where if you shout (from the Turkish coast) they will hear you: is this a victory?") is referring to the territorial cessions, but not to any intentions of revising them (an idea that would in any case be too patently absurd even for Erdogan's standards, and isn't even hinted at in that quotation). This "is this a victory?" statement is clearly from the context of the internal ideological dispute between the AKP and the Kemalists, about whether Lausanne was a brilliant success of the early Kemalist republic or a document of its weakness. This is part of the internal historiographic blame game about which party tradition has done more to damage Turkey's international strength; it has little or nothing to do with any real external agenda. Finally, the bit quoted in the same article, about "The islands and other discussions are ongoing", can only be referring to the "grey zones" issues. But that is not an issue of "revising" Lausanne, from the Turkish perspective, because – remember? – the whole point of the Turkish position regarding those "grey" islands is that Lausanne didn't regulate them at all. The "grey zones" are those that Turkey claims the Lausanne treaty left undecided. Be that position as absurd as it may: you can't "revise" regulations of a treaty that you yourself have been claiming never existed in the first place.

Finally, as for Dönmez' statements: we only have a single sentence from him, quoted third hand and in a an obviously distorted translation. The Greek version of the article [73] quotes him as saying "υπήρξαν κάποιες συνθήκες [...] Μια από αυτές είναι η Λωζάννη", which the English version renders nonsensically as "there were some conditions [...]", when what's meant is clearly "there were some treaties [...]". Evidently, Kathimerini's English editors translated blindly from the Greek article without checking the original. I haven't been able to track down the Turkish original of what he said, so it's impossible to figure out what he was really saying and what kinds of "re-negotiations" he was thinking of, but to the extent he was really speaking about islands it would still be consistent with a mere reference to the quarter-of-a-century-old "grey zones" issue, i.e. a call to negotiate the alleged areas that the Lausanne Treaty left open (the ones that "weren't clear" according to the quotation), rather than negotiating the substance of the actual cessions. Nothing new, in other words.

This whole thing is just another reminder of why we should never take any news source of either Turkish or Greek provenance for granted as a reliable source when it comes to these bilateral disputes, because none of them, ever, adheres to the most basic rule of responsible journalism when it comes to these "national" issues: separating factual news coverage from editorial opinion and interpretation. And with Wikipedia editors who lack the intellectual ability to sort these layers of fact and opinion apart in summarizing these sources, we'll always be getting the kind of POV mess this whole article has been turned into. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:36, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

The title in your section is inappropriate. As far as I can recall, in the past years you have accused several editors of tag teaming just because they didn't agree with you. That's the usual tactic you are following against editors who disagree with your POV: 1) Call them "Incompetent", 2) question their intelligence, 3) accuse them of tag-teaming, and more. Because if others disagree with you, is not right, coz you are the intelligent, the smart, the competent and the just admin. Very just, indeed, to the point of others striping you of admin privileges for abusing them. Just in last year, exactly one year from today, around the year change again, you were the subject of discussion on ANI for your WP:CIVIL problems but from the looks of it now, it seems you have learned nothing.

You are welcome to open discussions and help others understand your viewpoint, (with which I agree, and I already had understood your point, hence there weren't any further reverts from my side since the last time I came to this article on 30 Dec - which was four days ago). It amuses me how I returned back from my holiday celebrations only to find that, although I am agreeing with you, you have attacked my intelligence. That's unfortunate and very inappropriate for an admin. When will you stop using Talk pages to attack the others and finally act up on your role for once?

As for the rest of the section, you are welcome to make any changes and I would be very happy if you finally show some more attention to the article and you don't need me to tell you that. I am tired of being all alone in there. But at least, would you be cooperative enough as to avoid removing very bold moves that, given the mutual mistrust (for which you have the sole responsibility), can lead to misunderstandings? Removing very large swathes of information on the go instead of discussing them in the talk page first, like how you have done repeatedly in the past, isn't helpful. The use of talk pages for discussing the proposed changes can help immensely in avoiding needless misunderstandings and disagreements and have your changes stay easier by having the others understand your concerns. Unless you aren't here for that or to seek WP:CONSENSUS but to WP:OWN the article like how you have done already several times in the past? Hopefully you aren't. Good day and happy new year. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 12:53, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

I had a quick look through the section, tweaked some things around, removed an irrelevant sentence and a Daily Express source, tagged some weasel words etc. Feel free to ping me re. these as I may not be keeping a close eye on here. In general I've noted an over-reliance on Greek press and their perception of events e.g. interpreting the Turkish MFA tweet as a territorial claim over the island of Kastellorizo itself or emphasising the use of the Turkish name where the Greek name was also used; giving what appears to be the Greek MFA position (or at best a comment in Greek press) as an authoritative fact on international law, and so forth. There is also clearly an inappropriate amount of editorialisation and weasel words in here, weaving together a narrative that's not necessarily present in the sources. I've tagged and fixed this in some places but the whole article is too long for me to laboriously go through and presumably the same could apply to the rest and such bias can be replicated as new events are being added - so to editors working on this article, please be mindful of these. Happy new year to all, and thank you for your efforts. --GGT (talk) 13:35, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, thank you, thank you! And I am looking into more input from you in the future. The issues you pointed which elude me but others do better job at spotting them, proves why more editors are needed here. And if there is an way to draw more attention to the article, that will be immensely appreciated! Perhaps a tag exists for that purpose or something? Good day. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 15:35, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Future Perfect, just FYI, Fatih Donmez is the Energy Minister whose responsibility is the energy sector, and is the minister behind the Oruc Reic's energy surveys in the region including Kastellorizo, in which Turkey claimed "Sovereign rights" just a few weeks ago. Here is the Kanal 7 source, where Donmez is calling for the renegotiation of the Lausanne treaty (see 26:20-30:11): [74]. You may dispute the Greek sources but the Kanal 7 video leaves little room for doubt: as an Energy Minister, he asked publicly for the border treaty's renegotiation. I don't know Turkish, but the auto-translation uses the term renegotiation and is that Kanal 5 source the Greek news websites based their reports on. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 09:02, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

The relevant part of the interview (as transcribed in various Turkish news reports) is "Evet geçmişte işte günümüz dünyasında devam eden savaşlarla birlikte çok net olmayan birtakım anlaşmalar belki bugünkü tartışmaların temelini oluşturdu, Lozan bunlardan birisi olmakla birlikte. Ama neredeyse artık yüz yıl geçiyor bunlar oturulup, konuşulup müzakere edilebilir diye düşünüyorum" I'll try and translate literally: "Yes, in the past, together with the wars that have continued into our time, there were some not very clear treaties that maybe created the grounds for the controversies of today, Lausanne being one of them. But that was a century ago; I believe we can sit down and negotiate these things." Before and after this passage, as seen in the video, Dönmez is discussing his hopes for negotiations about the EEZ. The object of his sentence about "negotiating" in this specific passage is "bunlar" ("these [things]", plural), which is rather vague. It can either refer back to the "not very clear treaties" ("çok net olmayan birtakım anlaşmalar") or to the "controversies of today" ("bugünkü tartışmaların"). What it can't refer back to, grammatically, is "Lausanne". So what he's saying is he wants negotiations about the EEZ and he thinks those are somehow connected with legacy problems from the treaties of the early 20th century which should be clarified now. It's all quite vague as far as actual legal claims are concerned, of course; the typical smokescreen put up for the benefit of the domestic public. What he isn't saying is that Greece should sit down to discuss giving Turkey some islands back or anything like that. There's absolutely nothing new in that interview; just a routine reiteration of Turkish positions that have been around for a quarter of a century. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:41, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

It's all quite vague as far as actual legal claims are concerned, of course; the typical smokescreen put up for the benefit of the domestic public. What he isn't saying is that Greece should sit down to discuss giving Turkey some islands back or anything like that. There's absolutely nothing new in that interview Typical WP:IDONTLIKEIT denialism from you, who even doubted that there are ever Turkish overflights above Kastellorizo, until fellow editor TU-nor had to come and correct you. You say there is nothing territorial in Turkey's ambitions? Well sorry to disappoint you but you are alone on this. No sources confirm your positions that Ankara's Lausanne remarks aren't related to its neo-Ottoman ambitions. Contrary, the RS and the experts on the matter, state otherwise. An example of this the source from Jerusalem Post [75], where the strategy expert Seth Frantzman reports what are the reasons behind Ankara's desire to have the Lausanne treaty rewritten. According to Frantzman, it is all part of Turkey's Neo-Ottoman ambitions. Im providing here the precise quotation for everyone's convenience: This is how Ankara views the region as well: from the Ottoman empire's point of view. That is why Turkey keeps talking about rewriting the Lausanne Treaty and other agreements made after the First World War. Ankara’s invasion of Syria and setting up a dozen bases in northern Iraq, as well as involvement in Libya and the Eastern Mediterranean, is part of this. Well, the source is WP:RS and Frantzman is a strategy expert with deep knowledge of the regional affairs, unlike you who is merely an editor of Wikipedia. I do not expect, that you will ever respect what the sources say, FPAS, given your tendency to challenge/dismiss sources not conforming to your POV. I can predict that your response forward will be either to question Frantzman's credibility, call JP an unreliable source, or ever make different conclusions from it, which are not in line with what the expert says his report. Ankara is known for following a very consistent policy in the region. The Kastellorizo incident this summer, the Turkish MFA's "sovereign rights in Kastellorizo", Turkish leader's tedency to question the Lausanne Treaty, the overflights of Turkish airplanes even above Greek islands and territories which Turkey hasn't challenged in the past, Turkish ambitions for territories in Syria and Iraq, the opening of military bases in neighboring countries without the consent of the Cypriot/Syrian/Iraqi parliaments, the expansion of the list of gray zones by adding more Greek islands to it, the adoption of the Mavi Vatan doctrine, the unilateral expansion of SAR zone under which Ankara claims search and rescue rights to include even the Greek islands and waters, the LNA-Turkey maritime deal ignoring Greek islands, and now and Donmez's calls towards Greece for the rewriting of the Lausanne Treaty, are all simply part of the neo-Ottoman policy Ankara is following in the broader region and only a naive person would assume that Ankara seeks to rewrite the border treaties for reasons other than influence and expansion. The events relate to each other, the experts linked them, and the sources are here. Just you are refusing to acknowledge the reality in the region under the (authoritarian and assertive per sources) rule of Turkish President Erdogan. It is just your editorial OR vs what WP do say on the matter. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 11:33, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

As I'm sure you know, because I have told you repeatedly, I do not debate with you, so I will not respond to your screeds any further. As always: if you disagree with edits of mine, find some neutral, competent third party to arbitrate. I will explain my view to them, exactly once. Not to you, because it's a waste of time. Do not ever address me again in any posting of yours. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:43, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Erdogan's and Donmez's comments are interpreted by multiple independent third party sources that meet WP:RS. These sources are faithfully quoted. On the other hand, your own interpretation of these comments from the Youtube video is WP:OR. Khirurg (talk) 02:46, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Nonsense. You are experienced enough that you should know what is and what isn't "OR". Hint: critiques of sources on talkpages are not. As for "multiple" sources, Dönmez' statements were reported in this sense by exactly one source, Kathimerini, which demonstrably was misquoting him (plus Ahval, which was merely reprinting Kathimerini and is of dubious RS status itself). Erdogan's statements are of no relevance here, because Dönmez' statements are ostensibly the piece of news this paragraph was about. A single, ripped-out-of-context half sentence out of a TV interview which otherwise clearly dealt with different issues, mis-reported by a single source. Turning that into an entire paragraph in this article is, at a minimum, WP:UNDUE and WP:NOTNEWS. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:11, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Its unfortunate that Future Perfect has the tendency of challenging any sources that do not suit his POV. by either pointing to the source's ethnicity or something else. The most frequent argument FPAS is using against the sources is: "This whole thing is just another reminder of why we should never take any news source of either Turkish or Greek provenance for granted as a reliable source when it comes to these bilateral disputes, because none of them, ever, adheres to the most basic rule of responsible journalism when it comes to these "national" issues: separating factual news coverage from editorial opinion and interpretation. even though the Greek sources have proven to be reliable and meeting Wikipedia's WP:RS standards.

Also, FPAS had falsely argued that Of the various statements quoted from Erdogan, the ones made in the context of his 2017 visit to Athens are clearly not referring to territorial provisions of the Lausanne Treaty, but to its rules about minorities.. According to the sources, Erdogan wants the revision of the border treaty for the Greek islands that are close to the Turkish coast as well. Given FPAS's recorded bias against sources of Greek and Turkish origin, I will provide quote from the German newspaper Die Welt instead [76]: Erdogan hatte schon früher eine Revision des Vertrages gefordert, vor allem mit Blick auf die griechischen Ägäis-Inseln, die dicht vor der türkischen Küste liegen. English translation: Erdogan had previously called for a revision of the treaty, especially with a view to the Greek Aegean Islands, which are close to the Turkish coast. [77]. It is time for FPAS to give up his WP:OR and stop his misinterpretation of what Turkey seeks to revise the Lausanne Treaty for. Good day.--- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 13:57, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

 Comment: I shall note that the revision of the Lausanne Treaty has repeatedly been confirmed, not just by the various local and international media but by the experts on regional geopolitics as well. A thorough analysis on the Aegean dispute and the East Med which was published on January 2021 and is explaining the motives behind the Turkish policies in the region, can be found here: What Erdogan Really Wants in the Eastern Mediterranean. The geopolitics experts confirm what the German, Greek and Turkish opposition newspapers (the ones not controlled by the Turkish Government yet) also confirm: that Erdogan's goals behind the revision of the Lausanne Treaty (and the other events that happened in the region) are territorial foremost, and also it explains how the revision of border treaties is integral part of not just the old but also the new geopolitical ambitions for regional hegemony. The source also makes clear that, what FPAS had argued about the calls to revision the border treaty being ("just a routine reiteration of Turkish positions that have been around for a quarter of a century..") isn't true. Contrary, according to the experts, during the AKP's rule, Turkey has evolved from a secular state pursuing a Kemalist foreign policy, into an illiberal country under authoritarian rule which pursues an ambitious foreign policy. Per source: "Ankara is leveraging its various institutional, economic, and security ties with the West to climb the power ladder of the regional system while embracing illiberalism at home" because "Turkey today seeks to become a great power" [sic]. While it is understandable that FPAS with his valuable years-old knowledge of the Aegean dispute may have difficult time realizing that WP:AGE MATTERS, and that politics change, it is important that the article reflects on today's realities in the region. That means Turkey's AKP-led new foreign policy cannot be portrayed as a continuation of the decades-old Kemalist one. To claim so, goes not only against what the sources do say, but also falls into WP:OR. The Aegean dispute is a politically sensitive topic, and the editors here ought to make sure the article reflects on what the sources & the experts do report on the matter. Good day. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 02:43, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

UNCLOS

I've reverted [78] the recent(?) addition to the caption of the EEZ conflict map that claimed that the Greek and Cypriot claims were "in line with the UNCLOS" (implying that the Turkish ones were not). This claim was factually wrong. It's a frequent misunderstanding among Greek observers that their country's claims in this matter are directly supported by UNCLOS or somehow automatically arise from it, and no doubt many Greek sources will implicitly reinforce such a view, so it's understandable that some editors here were under that impression, but it's still wrong. The simple fact is, UNCLOS contains not a single word about what the exact means of delimitation of EEZs (or continental shelf areas for that matter) should be in the case of neighboring or geographically opposite countries. The one thing UNCLOS does specify in favor of the Greek view is that islands can, in principle, have EEZ areas of their own. However, that's the default case for situations where no conflicting/overlapping claim by a neighboring country exists (i.e. islands situated out in the open ocean etc). For neighboring/overlapping situations, the only thing UNCLOS specifies (in Article 74) is that solutions should be "effected by agreement [...] in order to achieve an equitable solution". What UNCLOS very much doesn't mandate is that such a delimitation should follow the automatic application of a median line between all potentially entitled territories, giving all islands equal weight with opposing mainland territories – it is perfectly in line with UNCLOS and multiple precedents that in individual cases, some island territories can be given less weight or no weight at all. So, neither of the two conflicting claims in the present case is automatically more "in line" with UNCLOS than the other. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:03, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Fut.Perf., the EEZ boundaries are the median lines per UNCLOS used in all international EEZ maps unless defined/specified differently through agreements. Im afraid the way the map's caption is written is non-WP:NEUTRAL and is POV. It writes: "Conflicting claims to the continental shelf and EEZ areas in the eastern Mediterranean. Blue: areas claimed by Greece and Cyprus; red: areas claimed by Turkey.". The map itself ignores that:

• A portion of the Greek-Egyptian line is now a demarcated boundary (note: a boundary is not claim) and the Greek-Egyptian boundary is more to the north (10%), with Greece not claiming anymore anything south of that demarcated border, thus, the map attributing an area south of that Greek-Egyptian boundary to as being "claimed by Greece", is false and WP:OR,
• the lines of the Cypriot-Egyptian & Cypriot-Israeli EEZs are actually demarcated boundaries (again not claims anymore).

The way the map is designed, ignores the changes made to the region through legal agreements and the way its caption is written is non-neutral as it either ignores these demarcated borders (Greece-Egypt) or reduces them (Egypt-Cyprus, Israel-Cyprus, Egypt-Israel-Cyprus joint point) into merely claims and equates them with the irredentist claims of a third country, Turkey, which per UNCLOS has no whatsoever say in the area, especially south of Crete, and south and east of Cyprus (which is the reason they are the only areas that have been demarcated anyways, since Crete and Cyprus aren't near Turkey's coastline).

The solution should be either 1) to have the map be fixed/updated to use the blue line (Greek/Cypriot claims line) only for those non-demarcated areas actually claimed between Greece, Cyprus and Turkey and use a line of different color for the demarcated areas with Egypt and Israel, either 2) to have the caption corrected to be more neutral by explaining that Greece's and Cyprus's claims were in the past, but not anymore (for demarcated areas) or are still today (for non-demarcated areas) based on the median lines per UNCLOS. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 23:01, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Didn't get the point, as usual. There is no such thing as "median lines per UNCLOS". UNCLOS doesn't speak about median lines for EEZs. No point discussing the rest of the above waffle as long as the most basic piece of information is being blithely ignored, again. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:07, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Didn't get the point, as usual. As an Admin you should know that WP:CIVIL is 1 of Wikipedia's 5 core pillars. Ignoring it every time you are addressing other editors, isn't going to end well.

Median line is the method used in the Equidistance principle, Fut.Perf.. Since you seem to know the UNCLOS, do I have to explain to you the Equidistance principle? The equidistance principle, or principle of equidistance, is a legal concept in maritime boundary claims that a nation's maritime boundaries should conform to a median line that is equidistant from the shores of neighboring nations. An equidistance line is one for which every point on the line is equidistant from the nearest points on the baselines being used. The world's EEZ lines (EEZ map can be seen here) follow this principle which is endorsed by the UNCLOS, and is used anywhere (unless there are agreements between states, other principles such as the equitable principle, or special circumstances). Greek and Cypriot boundaries and claims are following this principle, like the vast majority of UN member states do, including the United States and Israel which follow the UNCLOS even though they haven't ratified it. This isn't true for Turkey's Mavi Vatan lines however. Mavi Vatan isn't following any principles of the UNCLOS, isn't endorsed or acknowledged by any serious experts and scholars both inside and outside Turkey, were drawn by lunatic admirals in the Turkish Navy who pretended to be LOS experts, and like how Friso Dubbelboer has put it mindly, the Mavi Vatan's lines are no different than the Chinese nine-dash line, both being part of the Law of Jungle: [79]. If you are in the talk page to discuss problems, then drop that WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT attitude. It isn't helpful. Thank you. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 10:21, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Still doesn't change the fact that UNCLOS doesn't refer to median lines, or equidistance, when it comes to EEZ delimitation. End of discussion. I've told you numerous times, I don't debate with you. If you have something more to disagree about, find some competent third party to arbitrate. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:10, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

All right. I won't force you to any debates, but the problems I pointed out about your map and its caption remain unaddressed: They will have to be addressed or else the map will have to be removed per WP:OR, WP:UNDUE and WP:POV:

* 1) Your map displays the A. and B. points from the non-ratified Turkey-Libya (GNA) maritime border demarcation which didn't go into effect, and yet, at the same time, the map omits from displaying the ratified demarcation of the Greece-Egypt maritime border, as well as the Cyprus-Egypt and Cyprus-Israel ones, which are effective. Giving WP:UNDUE weight to a non-ratified agreement between Turkey and Libya (GNA) and omitting any mention of the ratified boundaries between Greece, Egypt, Cyprus and Israel, is POV, and it is no different than the Turkish government's WP:POV, according which, only the Turkey-GNA agreement is valid in the region and that any other agreements are null and void.

* 2) Your map is displaying the median lines which in parts are outdated since the map is ignoring the changes made to the claims via agreements, (i.e. In the Greece-Egypt boundary demarcation, Greece gave away 10% of Crete's EEZ to Egypt) and, even though it has been almost a year since that agreement, your map seems to ignore it. This is giving the readers the false impression that not only the Egypt-Greece agreement didn't go into effect, but also that Greece is still claiming nowadays that 10% of the EEZ it gave away to Egypt, which is WP:OR.

--- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 15:23, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

This map was created before the Greek-Egyptian agreements were made. If you have a pointer with useable map data regarding how that agreement differs from the lines here, let us know. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:32, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Don't bother, found it here: [80]. I'll upload an updated version of the map when I find some time. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:09, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Good. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 16:49, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Classified documents about plans against the Greek Islands

@Future Perfect at Sunrise:, as you already are aware, I went to the Reliable Sources Noticeboard where I sought a third-party opinion about the sources and the content you had reverted [81]. (for anyone who missed it, the discussion can be found here: [82]). From what they told me, the information may be re-added to the Aegean dispute, and, of course, with some necessary adjustments (WP:DUE, etc). In the edit summary, you had argued that "it is misplaced" even though the section concerns demilitarized status of the islands, the safety concerns stemming from the Turkish aggression, and even though that one of the source noted that it is unlikely that the islands will be demilitarized in light of these leaks about the aggressive plans against these islands. Can you suggest an alternative place for this information to be added if not where I had it? I am asking because I myself can't think any other sections in the article that may be more suitable for this kind of information, other than the section about their demilitarized status where it explains the reason the Greek islands are militarized. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 20:08, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

Since the only tangible piece of actual information in this whole story is the reference to the "islands of undetermined sovereignty", the only place where it marginally makes sense to insert something is that section, i.e. the one about the "grey zones". Something along the lines of: „In confidential internal documents from 2014, which were leaked to the public in 2021, the Turkish military put the number of "controversial islands" at 131. The reference was in the context of military contingency plans regarding potential military crises with Greece, implying that these islands would be a possible focus of conflict. According to the journalists who published the documents, the plans were likely to involve scenarios of military invasion by Turkey". – The issue of demilitarization is quite orthogonal to this story. Greece has long made it clear they consider renewed demilitarization out of the question in view of the perceived strategic danger. They didn't need this news story to reach that conclusion; it's been obvious for decades. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:31, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Sure. Albeit, with a correction to the dates: "leaked to the public in 2021" into "leaked to the public in 2020" because, even though the document showing the islands was leaked in 2021, the initial documents of that plan were leaked in 2020, not 2021. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 21:34, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Reverts, again

Re this [83]: D'uh, this is purely a matter of proper language, nothing to do with POV. A "delimitation between X and Y" is a border between geographical areas. The geographical areas in question here are Turkey and Libya. The Libyan GNA isn't a geographical area, but an institution. If we were talking about an "agreement between X and Y", then you could say "agreement between GNA and Turkey". But here we're dealing with stretches of water. Whatever the GNA was, it wasn't a stretch of water. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:21, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

The GNA (Government of National Accord) of Libya did not represent, nor controlled the whole country when it signed the contentious maritime deal with Turkey. The GNA controlled only the Tripoli and Misrata regions - roughly 30% of the country's total territory by the time of the deal's signature, while the GNA's Prime Minister did so without prior consent of all its cabinet members as required by the Skhirat Agreement's provisions (The Skhirat Agreement mandated and formed the GNA government and is the article 8 of the Agreement prohibits the Libyan Prime Minister from solely clinching international deals without consent of all the cabinet members).

Editors here are ought to be careful here as to not distort these facts to promote the Turkish POV on the deal as promoted by the ruling nationalist coalition in Turkey, and give it a light of legitimacy while there isn't any, yet such a description here in the map caption, not only goes against all these facts, but also it cones in absolute contrast with what the international community says and thinks about this deal.

Future Perfect, please revert yourself or else I will remove the whole caption completely. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 09:32, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

To note that Wikipedia is carefully calling the deal as "Libya (GNA)–Turkey maritime deal" (and for a good reason), and Future perfect ought to respect that by avoiding any pro-Turkish POV here and maintain WP:NEUTRALITY, which means:

1) Having the map caption reflecting the article's name properly and thus, correct the info into "Turkey and Libya (GNA)" or "Turkey and Libya's GNA",

or

2) Removing any mention of the deals and the parties all together from the map caption. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 09:46, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

It is perfectly adequate to say "claimed delimitation between Turkey and Libya", because, quite plainly, a "delimitation between Turkey and Libya" is what it was claimed to be. It wasn't claimed to be a delimitation between two governments, but between the countries they were representing, or claiming to represent. Whether they did so rightfully is neither here nor there – we're already adding "claimed", which is more than enough to hedge this. – If you want to remove the description completely, be my guest – but given how much talk there is in the article about that 2019 agreement, wouldn't it be a pity to not show the readers which boundary line it was all about? Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:58, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

All right, then, hope you are right that the presence of the word "claimed" in regards to these two countries, suffices enough so that it won't generate POV issues. In my case it didn't appear to be enough - not in the first glance at least - but with your explanation here, I guess it is enough, and hopefully for everyone as well. Good day. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 10:19, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Demilitarized Status and Sovereignty: hinged together?

The Aegean Dispute article's structure apparently is increasingly outdated and most likely will require restructuring, because the Aegean Dispute has changed drastically during Turkey's AKP era which is characterized by an far-right, irredentist and neo-Ottomanist foreign policy of ethnic tensions and territorial claims against multiple (five or six) neighboring countries, and this has affected even the perception of the Aegean disputes between the two countries for the worse. For example, while Demilitarized Status and Sovereignty were used to be treated separately by the Turkish side in the past decades (and, thus, were covered separately in the article), today, in 2021, they are hinged to each other and treated interdependently for the first time, through a letter by Turkey to the United Nations, where for the first time Greece's sovereignty on Lesvos, Chios, Samos, Ikaria, Lemnos and Samothrace is conditioned on their demilitarization.

Turkey renews call for demilitarization of islands in letter to UN

This is Turkey's letter to the UN: "Greece has no sovereign rights on the islands"

--- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 08:56, 6 October 2021 (UTC)