GREECE, 21 January, 2021, (TON): From 6-7 nautical miles, legislation to extend Greece’s territorial waters along its western coastline has been immensely approved by the Greek Parliament.

In Wednesday’s 284-0 vote, representatives of four opposition parties backed the centre-right government, while members of the Greek Communist Party abstained.

Few days ago, the alienated NATO allies Greece and Turkey resumed exploratory talks over contested maritime claims in the Aegean Sea.

It does not directly influence the ongoing maritime dispute with Turkey but it underlines the country’s right to execute the United Nations Conventions on the Law of the Sea that set the limit in 1982.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told Parliament that it is a clear message to those who are trying to deprive our country of this right.

Although the neighboring Turkey has not yet signed the Law of the Sea, the extension of Greece’s territorial waters would be a cause of war as in 1995, the Turkish Parliament said that it would interpret such an extension as a reason for declaring war.

The relations between the two countries have entered a hard phase where the two have long been at odds over sea boundaries and mineral rights in the Aegean Sea and a dispute in the eastern Mediterranean that caused a military deadlock last year.

On January 25, 2021, Ankara and Athens will continue the five year old suspended talks on reducing tensions. 

 Mitsotakis said, we will attend with optimism, self-confidence, but there would be “zero naivety” from Athens about the talks, which were unofficial and non-binding. There will be no discussion on national sovereignty.

Turkey says all issues should be tackled, including air space and the status of some islands on the Aegean Sea but never all the issues are dealt and resolved as Greece only wants to address the demarcation of maritime zones in the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean.

“It is not right to pick one of those (issues) and say ‘we’re holding exploratory talks’,” Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said earlier this week, criticizing Greece’s approach as non-constructive.

If the agreement between the two is failed then there should be at least a way to take the dispute to the interanational court of justice said Mitsotakisin the Parliament.

Last week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan emphasized the need to cooperate on the eastern Mediterranean as that will serve the long-term interests, rather than an area of competition.

Greece held negotiations with its regional neighbors, Italy and Albania before drafting the bill on the Ionian Sea, which extends the country’s limits for the first time since 1947.