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You sank Turkey's floating drilling rig: The only option in the violation of the Greek EEZ...

By THEODOROS KARYOTIS

We once said that Cyprus is far away. Shall we now say the same about Crete? Cyprus was violated in its EEZ by Turkey because, unfortunately, it could not defend its sovereign rights, since it still does not have a capable navy.

If Turkey attempts something similar to Greece, we cannot use the same argument, because we have a strong navy, capable of facing any challenge in Greek seas.

The Greek-Turkish crisis began in 1973, when the stupid colonels of Athens celebrated the oil found in Thassos and which will end up, as it seems, 47 years later in the sea of ​​Crete.

The Turks are preparing for the final conflict with us in the summer of 2020. They believe that global conditions are in their favor. The attention of the Turkish people can be distracted from the coronavirus crisis, the floundering economy and Erdogan's internal problems by sending a drilling ship to the sea south of Crete, which belongs to the Greek continental shelf/EEZ.

The Turkish seismograph "Chora", on August 6, 1976, violated the Greek continental shelf for the first time while sailing northeast of Lesvos. An alarm was raised in Athens with Turkey seeking nothing less than "control of the Aegean". The event that marked the crisis of 1976 is the intervention of Andreas Papandreou who, addressing Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis, said the historic phrase: "You sank the Chora". A phrase that seems to have been made in consultation with Karamanlis. Although the two of them were bitter political opponents, they collaborated silently and effectively on the national issue.

• I am sure that if Andreas Papandreou were alive today, he would repeat the message of determination with the slogan "you sank the drill".

It seems that this summer we are heading towards the climax of the Greek-Turkish tragedy. Many signs of this are now evident on the horizon.

We must emphasize here that since the time of UNCLOS, 38 years ago, only two states have violated the law by sending drilling rigs into the EEZs of other states. These are China and Turkey. China violates the EEZs of five of its neighboring states, while Turkey violates the EEZ of Cyprus. This, of course, also demonstrates the hypocrisy of Donald Trump, who condemns China's actions, but plays the island in the case of Turkey and its friend Erdogan.

It is also important to remember here that no other country's drilling rig has ever invaded another country's EEZ. Think about what would have happened if a Mexican drilling rig had attempted to enter the US EEZ in the Gulf of Mexico. It would have sunk in a matter of seconds. This is what Americans do even when others try to steal their fish.

Turkey's goal was always Kastelorizo, but today it reached Crete, because essentially the sea it always coveted was precisely the sea between Kastelorizo ​​and Crete.

Turkey continues to publish maps, but we just ignore them. Once upon a time in 2011 we published a map, the Maniatis Map, which showed our maritime borders on our western coast with Albania, Italy and Libya, but we avoided showing our eastern borders with Egypt, Cyprus and Turkey. So Turkey announced the day before yesterday that it would conduct surveys outside the territorial waters of the Dodecanese and Crete, and of course once again erased the Kastelorizo ​​complex, as the map below shows.

Turkey's New Provocative Map

Source: KATHIMERINI Newspaper, June 2, 2020

The map of the 24 plots of land that Ankara has demarcated from its coasts to the point where, based on the memorandum signed with Tripoli last December, the maritime borders of Turkey and Libya abut, is revealed today by "K". The map was posted in the Turkish Government Gazette and constitutes the essential depiction of Turkish claims against Greek sovereign rights such as the continental shelf, as some of these plots are located six nautical miles east of Rhodes, Karpathos, Kasos and Eastern Crete.

The General Directorate of the Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) has submitted a request to the General Directorate of Mines and Petroleum Works of Turkey for the approval of additional oil exploration licenses in seven plots in the Mediterranean Sea within the Turkish continental shelf. TPAO uses the codes T18, T19, U18, U19, T16, T17, U16, in a sea area extending between Rhodes, Karpathos and Crete in the west, and Cyprus in the east. The document was published in the Turkish Government Gazette on May 30, 2020.

We must note here that the map presented has no relation to the Turkish-Libyan memorandum, as it does not include the disputed points of the Turkish-Libyan memorandum. The above Turkish plots belong to the Greek continental shelf, which of course we have not delimited with maps and geographical coordinates. What maps and geographical coordinates do we have, which would show that these Turkish plots belong to Greece?

• Turkey's main deadly blow will be delivered when it sends first a seismograph and then a floating drilling rig into our sea, between Crete and Gavdos. The government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis will then gamble its life with all its might.

It is said that the Turks want negotiation. The Turks do not want negotiation. They seek rupture and then they want Trump's intervention to steal part of our sea in the Eastern Mediterranean.

A naval conflict is not expected to last more than two days and Greece's naval superiority will not allow Turkey to deliver the decisive blow it desires. The supposed lightning move by the US, NATO and the European Union will not only not be lightning fast, but everyone will advise us that we must deal with Turkey once and for all.

Thus, the conditions will have matured for the implementation of the American plan, which envisages the seizure of part of our sea by the Turks because, as the Americans claim, it is unfair for Turkey, with its vast coastline, to have no sea in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The exercise, which is being prepared by the Turkish Navy, will be carried out from Rhodes and Kastelorizo, south of Crete, just outside the territorial waters of Gavdos and off the coast of the Gulf of Sirte in Libya. It will essentially be a dress rehearsal for the Fatih's mission to the south of Crete at the end of July for seismic surveys, which will be complemented by the descent of a floating drilling rig in this area, under the pretext that it is on the continental shelf/EEZ of Libya.

The Erdogan government is doing everything in its power to support the Tripoli government and consequently the Turkish-Libyan memorandum of cooperation in every way. Several analysts have long argued that this is where Turkey is playing it safe and that is where its interest will be focused in the near future, namely in the open seas of the Mediterranean.

Instead of discussing the EEZ, we continue the continental shelf trope. Fortunately, however, as if by magic, the EU High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, came to wake up the Greek government, which was talking about the violation of its continental shelf, emphasizing:

• "We are in close contact with our colleagues, the Foreign Ministers of Greece and also of Cyprus, in order to monitor the situation of drilling and We call on Turkey to stop drilling in areas where there is an EEZ or territorial waters of Cyprus and Greece.».

The European Union spoke about Greece's EEZ! So, now, the only substantial but very belated way to deal with the Turks is to immediately declare an EEZ, send the geographical coordinates to the UN and delimit our EEZ with the EEZ of the Republic of Cyprus. The only obstacle to delimitation with the Republic of Cyprus is our phobic syndrome.

As for Egypt, it is time for General Sisi to delimit his country's EEZ with that of Greece. It seems that lately he has been flirting with Turkey, which promises him a larger EEZ than an agreement with Greece would secure. If this happens, Greece will have no maritime border with Cyprus.

Under these circumstances, Greece's immediate priority is none other than the delimitation of the EEZs of Greece and Cyprus.

I believe that the current Prime Minister of our country, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, will rise to the occasion in defending the sovereign rights of Greece. As a good student of history, he can draw useful lessons from Eleftherios Venizelos and Andreas Papandreou.