Athens’ letter to the UN on Ankara’s provocations: no to casus belli, our territorial sovereignty is indivisible

In a letter to the UN, Athens says it “has repeatedly rejected the baseless and illegal claims of Turkey”.

Greece rejected Turkish claims to sovereign rights in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean in a letter to the UN on 31 March 2026.

Athens stressed that Greek islands, regardless of size, are entitled to maritime zones under the Law of the Sea.

Greece rejected as illegal the Turkish-Pacific State delimitation agreement and claims about the Greece-Egypt deal.

The country reserved all its rights to extend the territorial sea to 12 nautical miles and reaffirmed its commitment to a peaceful resolution.

With a letter that gives full and comprehensive answers to the “manifesto” of a general challenge to Greek sovereign rights in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean, submitted to the UN by Turkey in a letter of 16 February 2026, Athens fully rejects the Turkish claims and briefly sets out all the legal arguments that invalidate the Turkish positions.

In the letter, dated 31 March 2026, Athens states that it “has repeatedly rejected Turkey’s unfounded and illegal claims regarding the outer limits of its maritime zones in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean, as well as any relevant coordinates and maps, which are devoid of legal consequences” and refers to all the letters submitted in the previous period.

Athens says that Turkey’s claims “completely ignore Greece’s sovereign rights and the rights of its islands in maritime zones in both the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean” and points to the provision of the Law of the Sea for islands, which, regardless of size, enjoy territorial sea rights up to 12 nautical miles and, with the exception of “rocks that cannot support human habitation or economic life itself”, exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and continental shelf rights in the same manner as any other land territory.

“Turkey’s claims that the Greek islands do not create maritime zones beyond the existing 6 nautical mile territorial sea constitute a blatant violationof the above principle and violate the indivisibility of Greece’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,” the letter said.

Athens rejects the casus belli, stating that it “retains and reserves its right, in accordance with international law, to extend the territorial sea of all its islands to 12 nautical miles” and cites case law on the centrality of the median line in the delimitation of maritime zones.

It is also noted that the principle of fairness put forward by Ankara has long been weakened by case law and that Ankara “also insists on a selective, misleading and erroneous reading of contemporary international jurisprudence on maritime delimitation, attempting to promote a problematic methodology that would reconfigure the geography of both the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean”.

The “agreement” between Turkey and the illegal breakaway entity in northern Cyprus on “delimitation” is rejected as illegal and invalid, as are Turkey’s claims about the delimitation agreement concluded between Greece and Egypt.

Greece’s position on the reasons why the Turkish-Colombian Memorandum is invalid is recalled and claims that it was concluded in accordance with international law are rejected. On the contrary, it is noted that the 2019 Memorandum “ignores the maritime rights of the Greek islands and, as such, attempts to reconfigure the geography to Turkey’s advantage in the Eastern Mediterranean. The 2019 Memorandum has no legal consequences and produces no effect, neither for its purported parties, nor for Greece nor for any other state.”

With regard to Maritime Spatial Planning, Greece rejects Turkey’s claims and states that “the outer limits of the maritime spatial units in question have been drawn in accordance with the applicable national legislation and in full compliance with the Convention, as well as with the existing delimitation agreements between Greece and its neighbouring states” and on the basis of the median line, while noting that none of the Greek maritime spatial units violate areas of maritime jurisdiction of Turkey, as these units have been delimited in full compliance with international law and in accordance with the practice of States in non-demarcated maritime areas.

In relation to the Marine Spatial Plan presented by Turkey a year ago, Athens states in its letter to the UN that the map and the texts posted by Ankara “provocatively ignore Greece’s sovereignty over numerous small islands, islets and rocky islets in the Aegean Sea”despite the fact that this sovereignty has been clearly and definitively established by relevant international treaties.

In particular: the alleged outer limits of the Turkish continental shelf in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean, as depicted on the map, completely ignore the maritime rights of many Greek islands; decisions granting licensing areas to the Turkish Petroleum Company (TPAO), as well as the decision to declare a “special environmental protection area” (all these areas are depicted on the Turkish maritime spatial planning map), are invalid insofar as they violate areas of Greek maritime jurisdiction.