Not 16, but 156 Turkish islands and islets in the Aegean Sea are occupied by Greece, said a Turkish news website odatv.com report. The report comes after a discussion in Turkish parliament a few weeks ago regarding 16 islands of the Aegean that supposedly belong to Turkey but are under “Greek occupation.” The Turkish side claims that under a treaty, Italy gave Greece some islands in the Aegean without specifying which, therefore several islands belong to the successor of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey. In the past, Turkey has claimed that the island of Gavdos — off Crete — is not named in the treaty that pertains to Crete, therefore it belongs to Turkey. The Turkish claim was dismissed by NATO. Now a new report from Turkey focuses on Agathonisi. According to odatv.com, the particular island, along with the other 155, is occupied by Greece since 2004. According to the report, Greece has achieved to occupy and establish sovereignty of the islands with the collaboration of Frontex, the European Union agency that manages cooperation between national border guards, and Latvia. Odatv.com said that Greek and Latvian coast guard ships operate around Agathonisi illegally, thereby violating Turkish territory. As proof of the claim, the report uses a 1951 British map and a 1957 U.S. map in which Agathonisi belongs to the Turkish Republic. On the Greek side, Konstantinos Koutras, a Foreign Ministry official, said that, “No doubt exists on the status of any island or islet in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean. Besides, international law is one of the foundations of European civilization and cannot be altered by unilateral declarations or actions.”
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