An adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan confirmed Friday that Turkey’s threat of war if Greece extends its sea territory to 12 nautical miles from the current 6 is still part of Turkey’s policy.
Cagri Erhan, an academic, said the 1995 decision by Turkey’s Parliament is still official policy and that an extension of territorial waters “by even one centimeter” would constitute a cause of war (casus belli).
Erhan added that legislation under preparation to codify Turkey’s sea claims, long presented under the slogan “Blue Homeland,” is not a hostile act against Greece.
Turkey’s position on the territorial waters is that, as the Turkish mainland is “hemmed in” by a string of nearby Greek islands over a large part of its coast, extending the waters would be a hostile act. Greece has retorted that it has every right to extend its waters if and when it decides to do so.
In some cases where the Greek islands are too close to the Turkish coastline, territorial water borders are at mid-distance.
