Ankara ‘threatens’ own marine parks
Pro-government newspaper Sabah says intention is to counterbalance Greece’s announced plans
In an apparent attempt to broaden the agenda of Greek-Turkish issues, Ankara is reportedly threatening to create Turkish marine parks in the Aegean.
A report in the pro-government newspaper Sabah said that although no zoning has yet been done, Ankara wants to declare marine parks in the Aegean in order to respond to the plan announced by Athens, which was a point of contention during last month’s meeting between Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara.
It is conjectured that the Turkish government’s leaks to the press are seen more as a warning to Greece not to proceed with its plan to create marine parks in the Aegean and less – for the time being at least – as an announcement that it will create its own Turkish parks.
The paper’s report said the mapping will be undertaken by the Turkish Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure while it also cites a diplomatic source who expressed Ankara’s dismay at what was perceived as a “unilateral move by Greece.”
This move, the source added, was made “without consultation with Turkey, which translates into territorialization through the demarcation and regulation of resource use in a geographically defined area.”
Last week, Mitsotakis declared that “the marine parks will of course be built within the area of Greek sovereignty” and wondered how a “marine park in the Cyclades is a concern for Turkey.”
The day after last month’s meeting in Ankara when Erdogan raised the issue with Mitsotakis, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said, “We recorded our reservations and thoughts about the marine park.”
“We expressed them. We said that this is not an innocent environmental project in our eyes, that if it goes ahead it will enter into issues concerning the continental shelf, which is a red line that worries us, and that we will not accept it,” Fidan said.
The Sabah article also implied that there is scope for joint cooperation between Greece and Turkey on the issue of marine parks, citing, in fact, as an example a cooperation between the Philippines and Malaysia. “There are cases where states have used marine parks to gain rights over disputed marine resources, restrict the freedom of others and establish sovereignty over maritime space. However, there are also successful examples of cooperation. One such example is the collaboration between Malaysia and the Philippines in 1996 for the first marine transboundary protected area in Asia, namely the Turtle Islands Heritage Protected Area in the Sulu Sea,” it said.
