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### Viewing cable 09ANKARA78, KEEPING CALM IN THE AEGEAN

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Reference ID | Created | Released | Classification | Origin
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
09ANKARA78 | 2009-01-15 17:19 | 2011-05-18 08:00 | CONFIDENTIAL | Embassy Ankara
Appears in these articles: http://www.tanea.gr

`

    VZCZCXYZ0002
    OO RUEHWEB

    DE RUEHAK #0078/01 0151719
    ZNY CCCCC ZZH
    O 151719Z JAN 09
    FM AMEMBASSY ANKARA
    TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 8481
    INFO RUEHZG/NATO EU COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
    RHMFISS/EUCOM POLAD VAIHINGEN GE IMMEDIATE
    RUEKJCS/JCS WASHDC IMMEDIATE
    RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC IMMEDIATE

` `

    C O N F I D E N T I A L ANKARA 000078

    SIPDIS

    E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/12/2019
    TAGS: PREL MOPS NATO GR TU
    SUBJECT: KEEPING CALM IN THE AEGEAN

    REF: A. 08 ATHENS 966
         ¶B. 08 ANKARA 2075
         ¶C. 08 ATHENS DAO 161642Z DEC 08 IIR 6-837-0184-09
         ¶D. ATHENS 18
         ¶E. ATHENS 19

    Classified By: Ambassador James F. Jeffrey, Reasons 1.4 (b,d)

    ¶1. (C) SUMMARY:  The list of potential flashpoints between
    Turkey and Greece is long, and both sides have tried to drag
    the U.S. or NATO into these disputes, particularly on the
    status of demilitarization of islands in the eastern Aegean.
    To help ensure Greece -Turkey relations do not go off track,
    it is imperative that NATO stay out of Greece-Turkey
    bilateral disputes, and as in the past, apply vigorously the
    Luns Doctrine.  This should include avoiding NATO
    participation in national exercises involving islands whose
    militarization status is in dispute.  NATO's participation in
    Noble Archer by the overflight of Agios Efstratios, an island
    which Turkey argues is demilitarized, has increased
    Turkey-Greece tensions.  A repeat of Noble Archer or a
    similar exercise scenario will exacerbate already elevated
    tension between Turkey and Greece, potentially to a dangerous
    level.  We are cautioning Turkey against taking provocative
    steps in the Aegean that challenge the sovereignty of Greek
    islets in the Dodecanese.

    ¶2. (C)  We disagree with two key Greek arguments in this
    regard:

    --  That Turkey could apply "demilitarization" to a
    never-ending list of Aegean islands (See Para 8 "1914"), and

    --  that a "dispute" that triggers NATO's Luns Doctrine
    requires ICJ involvement (particularly since a bilateral
    mechanism exists - see para 7).

    Turkish retaliation for Noble Archer by overflight of two
    populated Dodecanese islets implicitly questions Greek
    sovereignty, and we have raised this problem with the Turks
    (para 9 and septel).  END SUMMARY

    State of Affairs in the Aegean Post "Noble Archer"
    --------------------------------------------- -----

    ¶3.  (C)  Rapprochement between Turkey and Greece has been one
    of the policy successes of the last decade, and we have a
    keen interest in strengthening it.  The list of potential
    Turkey-Greece flashpoints (and on-going disputes) is long --
    including minorities in both countries, Balkan issues, and
    Cyprus -- the one area of direct potential conflict is the
    Aegean.  Both sides have tried to drag us or NATO into their
    disputes over militarization of the islands.  In the past few
    months we have seen an up-tick in tensions, including NATO
    inclusion of Agios Efstratios in a recent exercise,
    allegations of Turkish overflights in "retaliation," Russian
    exercises in the Aegean which apparently included FIR
    notification to Athens (a redline for Turkey), and recent
    Greek allegations of an increase in Turkish provocations in
    the Aegean (refs C and D).

    ¶4.  (C)  Our goal should be, first, to keep both sides from
    provoking the other.  This may require specifically taking
    both sides to task when they do things that are politically
    foolish or legally or historically questionable.  But, in
    addition, we need to ensure that neither we nor NATO
    (identified closely here with the U.S.) become involved in
    these bilateral disputes.  Thus, our admonition that NATO and
    the U.S. need to apply vigorously the Luns Doctrine.

    ¶5.  (C)  We were not happy that NATO took its decision to
    participate in Noble Archer, although we did our best to
    dampen the initial Turkish response.  The subsequent Greek
    media (Ref B) emphasis on the GoG's successful diplomacy and
    the lack of an immediate Turkish reaction, and the possible
    Turkish reaction to this reaction, however, illustrate how
    Aegean issues can spiral down even when both sides say they
    want to maintain calm.

    ¶6.  (C)  MFA Under Secretary Apakan made starkly clear to
    Ambassador on January 8 that Turkey views with real alarm
    NATO's moving forward with the Noble Archer exercise,
    violating a long tradition of neutrality in these disputes.
    A formal letter from the Turkish military representative to
    the NATO Military Committee Chairman in November should have
    indicated to NATO that this was a disputed issue.  This would
    have a deleterious effect on the overall rapprochement
    between Greece and Turkey, he went on, and thus he just could
    not understand NATO's action.
    ¶7.  (C)  COMMENT:  We do not believe the standard applied to
    the definition of a "dispute" between Turkey and Greece that
    triggers the Luns Doctrine should be as formal as submission
    to the ICJ.  This has not been the standard in Greece-Turkey
    disputes for the last 20 years, and, as U/S Apakan made clear
    to Ambassador, the two countries have a bilateral mechanism
    to address such disputes formally recognized by the EU.  When
    there is an openly stated dispute, NATO thus must apply the
    Luns Doctrine to avoid exacerbating tensions.  The following
    paragraphs provide the legal and political underpinning of
    our conclusions.  END COMMENT

    Aegean Islands Demilitarization Background
    ------------------------------------------

    ¶8. (SBU) A look at the basic issues between Greece and Turkey
    in the Aegean, especially demilitarized islands, may help in
    reviewing actions and options.  The demilitarization
    provisions of various agreements are open to interpretation,
    but to the best of our knowledge, the following are the facts:

    1914: Six Party Decision: The "Great Powers" at the time,
    following agreements between Greece and Turkey after the 1913
    Balkan War, awarded the "islands occupied by Greece" without
    naming them to Greece, on the understanding that they would
    be demilitarized, specifically, "shall not be fortified or
    used for any naval or military purposes."  These islands
    include six subsequently named in the Lausanne Treaty and the
    Straits Agreement (see below), two that went back to Turkey
    (Imbros and Tenedos), and three more, including Agios
    Efstratios, the subject of last month's tension, as well as
    Thassos and Psara.

    1923: Endorsement of Six Party Decision in Lausanne:  Article
    12 of the Lausanne Treaty of 1923, regulating the peace
    between Turkey and the Allied parties, including Greece,
    endorsed specifically the Six Party Decision.  There is
    nothing in this language, or in the subsequent actions since
    then to confirm a frequent Greek assertion that Article 12
    only confirms Greek sovereignty over the islands, not the
    condition of demilitarization.

    1923: Lausanne Demilitarization Provisions: Article 13 of the
    Treaty specifically demilitarized four of the larger
    "Decision" islands -- Mytilene, Chios, Samos, and Ikaria --
    allowing only limited local military and police forces, and
    no fortification or naval base.

    1923: Lausanne Straits Agreement: This agreement, appended to
    the Lausanne Treaty, demilitarized both the straits and a
    number of islands close to the mouth of the Bosporus,
    including the Turkish islands of Imbros and Tenedos, and the
    Greek islands of Limnos and Samothrace.  This
    demilitarization was more radical than that in the Lausanne
    Treaty or the Decision, specifically prohibiting any military
    forces whatsoever, and establishing specific small arms
    limits on police and gendarmerie.

    1936: The Montreux Straits Agreement of 1936 replaced the
    Lausanne Straits Agreement.  In the Protocol, the Agreement
    declared that Turkey had the right to militarize the straits,
    to include Imbros and Tenedos.  Nowhere does the Agreement
    address the Greek islands.  Supporters of the Greek view
    point out that, as the Preface to the Agreement notes that as
    this agreement replaces the Lausanne Straits Agreement, the
    demilitarization of the two Greek islands in Lausanne was
    thereby lifted.  Here, they cite a statement by the
    then-Turkish foreign minister in the Turkish parliament
    supporting the Greek right to militarize the islands.  The
    Turks, while understandably embarrassed by that statement,
    point out that if the various states parties had meant to
    lift the demilitarization of the Greek islands, they would
    have said so, as they did with the demilitarization
    provisions of Lausanne in reference to the Turkish islands
    (i.e. in the Protocol).  Turks further argue that general
    statements in a preface carry less weight, that the 1914
    original disarmament decision in any case still remains in
    effect, and that the logic of international agreements from
    1914 through 1947 is to demilitarize Greeks islands close to
    Turkey (see below).

    1947: The Paris Treaty, between the Allied powers including
    Greece (but not Turkey) and Italy, granted sovereignty of the
    Dodecanese islands (seized from the Ottoman Empire by Italy
    in 1912) to Greece, but on condition that they be
    demilitarized.

    ¶9. (C) One problem which the Turks appear to be exploiting
    with overflights is the status of small inhabited islets in
    the Dodecanese.  These islets, including Agathonisi and
    Farmakonisi, were named neither in the 1914 agreements nor in
    Lausanne, which turned the Dodecanese over to Italy from the
    Ottoman Empire, nor in the Treaty of Paris of 1947.  Lausanne
    listed the major Dodecanese islands and then added "the
    dependent islets."  The Paris Treaty continued things by
    referring to "adjacent islets."  Given that the islands are
    inhabited, their status and Greek sovereignty over them seems
    quite clear, and implicit Turkish raising of their
    sovereignty a highly questionable response.

    The Political/Strategic Dimension
    ---------------------------------

    ¶10. (SBU) Turks make three linked arguments on
    demilitarization.  First, the geography of the Aegean is such
    that the string of Greek islands right off the coast of
    Turkey's largest ports, Istanbul and Izmir, and the entrance
    to the Bosporus, creates an unusual situation affecting
    Turkish security and world trade between the Black Sea and
    the Mediterranean.  Second, in recognition of this fact, on
    each occasion (1914, 1923, 1936, 1947) that the international
    community addressed these islands by mention or omission
    (1936), it supported their demilitarization.  Third, Turkey
    sees this issue through the focus of other Greek actions
    which, in Turkish eyes, have the cumulative effect of
    creating out of the Aegean a "Greek lake" and calling into
    question Turkey's rights of navigation, military operations,
    and exploitation of the seabed in "international waters and
    airspace" of the Aegean.

    ¶11. (SBU) These Greek actions include:

    --  demanding that military operations within the Athens FIR
    request permission, although the ICAO states specifically
    that the FIR is for civilian aircraft;

    --  the declaration of a 10-mile airspace around Greek
    territory including islands, when common international
    practice is to have national air and sea space contiguous
    (i.e., in the Aegean, six miles);
    --  the claim to the right to declare a 12-mile national
    waters;

    --  a vague claim that various agreements in the 1930,s and
    in the Paris Treaty divided the Aegean between Greece and
    Turkey; and (from the Turkish point of view)

    --  exaggerated claims of continental shelf arising from the
    Law of the Sea Treaty.

    ¶12. (SBU) Each of the Turkish assertions can be and has been
    challenged.  The Turks (and Greeks) are on more solid ground
    on some than on others.  But the key point is that these are
    true international disputes.

    Why Aegean Demilitarization Dispute Matters to Turkey
    --------------------------------------------- --------

    ¶13.  (C) Turks today do not fear a stranglehold on the
    Turkish coast, sea trade, and key cities by Greek bases, nor
    do they fear an invasion like the British landing at
    Canakkale from Limnos in 1915.  Nevertheless, the disputes
    remain important from several standpoints:

    -- They represent an issue of "borders," albeit mainly sea,
    continental shelf, and airspace.  Borders are of fundamental
    importance to the Turkish state's sense of self, from
    defending them in the 1920s against the Greeks, Italians,
    French, Russians, and English, to post-independence border
    issues, beginning with the Mosul Vilayet surrender decision,
    the 50-year dispute with Syria over Hatay province, and the
    (still latent) border "dispute" with Armenia.  Turks fear
    that Greek assertions of rights not justified in
    international agreements could encourage others to advance
    their own claims.

    -- The Continental Shelf dispute, particularly active in the
    1980s, represents to the extent oil or gas is ever discovered
    there, a pragmatic reason for Turkey,s asserting its rights
    in the Aegean.

    -- Finally, as we saw in U.S.-brokered discussions on the
    Aegean in the late 1990s, Turkey's yielding eventually on the
    island demilitarization question - on the assumption that
    this is the most sensitive for Greece and its sovereign
    interests - is about the only Aegean "quid" Turkey could
    easily deploy in return for the Greek "quo" of yielding on
    its various other claims noted above.  If the international
    community  starts taking the "Greek side" on these
    demilitarization issues (e.g. Noble Archer), the Turkish quid
    soon becomes worthless.

    Visit Ankara's Classified Web Site at
    http://www.intelink.sgov.gov/wiki/Portal:Turk ey

    Jeffrey

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