The legal status of Imia
The Imia islets lie at a distance of 1.9 nautical miles from the
Greek island of Kalolimnos, 5.3 n.m. from the Greek island of Kalymnos,
3.65 n.m. from the Turkish coast and 2.3 n.m. from the Turkish island of
Cavus (formerly Kato). Like the rest of the Dodecanese island chain, they
were ceded to Italy by virtue of article 15 of the Lausanne Peace Treaty
of 1923.
At least three international agreements establish unambiguously
Greece’s ownership of Imia. ·
The
first is the 1923 Lausanne Peace Treaty, which limits Turkish sovereignty
– with the exception of Imbros. Tenedos and the Rabbit Islands –
explicitly only over islands lying within a three-mile limit off the
Turkish coast (Article 12). As noted above, however, Imia are 3.65 n.m.
off the Turkish coast. ·
The
second is the January 4, 1932 Agreement between Italy and Turkey and its
supplementary agreement of December 28, 1932. More specifically, the
January 4 Agreement set down with precision the maritime frontier between
the island of Castellorizo and the Turkish coast. The day this Agreement
was signed, the two parties exchanged official letters by which they
mutually asserted that there was no difference between them as to their
respective territorial sovereignty, and called for a joint Italo-Turkish
technical committee to be set up for the purpose of precisely delimiting
the rest of the maritime boundary between the Dodecanese and the Turkish
coast. In accordance with this Agreement, the representatives of Italy and
Turkey signed in Ankara, on December 28, 1932, a supplementary agreement
by which the rest of the maritime frontier between the Dodecanese and the
Turkish coast was precisely delimited. ·
The
agreement fixes 37 pairs of reference points between the maritime boundary
dividing Turkish and Italian territory (which, at the time, included the
Aegean Dodecanese islands) was drawn. Point 30 of this agreement states
that the maritime frontier north of Kalymnos will pass at a median
distance between the Imia rocks (on the Italian side) and Kato island (on
the Turkish side). Thus, Italian sovereignty over Imia is confirmed by the
explicit reference made to them in the text itself. ·
The
third international agreement was the Paris Treaty of 1947, signed between
Italy and the Allied Powers after the conclusion of World War II. In that
treaty, Italy ceded the Dodecanese islands and all adjacent islets to
Greece. As it is well known, under international law, the successor state
automatically assumes all the rights and obligations that have been
established by international treaty between the initial possessor state
and every third party (in this case, between Italy and Turkey). Turkey’s legal assertions
The principal argument, on which Turkey bases its claim, is the
assertion that the legal procedures of the agreement of December 1932 were
not completed and that it was not registered with the Secretariat of the
League of Nations. However, the December agreement was supplementary to
that of January, which set the maritime frontier between Castellorizo and
the Turkish coast and settled an issue concerning the sovereignty of some
islets around Castellorizo, over which there was a difference of opinion
between the two sides. The December agreement did not aim at settling any
territorial difference between the two countries, as was stated both in
the text of the agreement itself and in the letters exchanged on the 4th
of January 1932, between the then Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs and
the then Italian Ambassador in Ankara, by which the two parties declared
that there existed no difference as to the territorial sovereignty of each
side. The December agreement merely sets with precision the remaining
maritime frontier between the Dodecanese and the Turkish coast. For this
reason it did not need separate registration with the Secretariat of the
League of Nations. It is thus not surprising that the delimitation of the
frontier set by this agreement was never in the past contested by Turkey
or Italy, even after the Dodecanese was ceded to Greece.
Turkey has further asserted that Greece allegedly had doubts, at
the time of the signing of the Paris Peace Treaty, concerning the validity
of the 1932 agreements. This Turkish argument is unfounded both in law and
in fact. As noted above, according to international law, the successor
state succeed to all rights and obligations established by international
treaties between the original possessor state and any third party. Greece
had no doubt as to the validity of the aforementioned agreements nor had
Turkey or Italy, since they both immediately implemented the provisions of
the agreement and abided by them thereafter. There is clearly no need for
any confirmation of the validity of any treaty regulating the status of
the ceded territories. This is further evidenced by other international
agreements and maps of the immediate post World War period, according to
which this delimitation is officially recognized by Turkey as her frontier
line with Greece. To mention just two. There is the map attached to the
1950 ICAO Regional Agreement adopted by the Council of the Organization,
and also the official Turkish map included in the 1953 edition of the
Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Navigation through the Straits.
Furthermore, mot only Greek and Turkish maps, but also official maps of
other countries such as the United States and Italy include the Imia rocks
within Greek national territory. Finally,
the fact that both Greece and Turkey considered the agreements of 1932 as
valid, is shown by the fact that Greece was the country that exercised
sovereign rights over the Imia islets all this time without Turkey ever
raising any protest. The Greek Geographic Service repeatedly visited the
Imia islets and used a trigonometric marker on the larger rock, which it
had installed for its purposes. Greek fishermen fished regularly in the
waters surrounding these islets, and Greek shepherds are the owners of the
goats that graze on the islets. National Issues of Greece, February
2002
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