Imia

Imia (Ίμια) / Kardak
Waters	Mediterranean Sea
Archipelago	Dodecanese
Geographical location	37 ° 2 '54 "  N , 27 ° 8' 51.1"  E Coordinates: 37 ° 2 '54 "  N , 27 ° 8' 51.1"  E
length	220 m
width	140 m
surface	4.9 ha
Residents	uninhabited

Imia ( Greek Ίμια [ ˈimja ] ( n. Pl. )) Is the Greek name for two small uninhabited islands in the eastern Aegean , which were the subject of a territorial dispute between Greece and Turkey in 1996 . The Turkish name of the islands is Kardak . Alternative names are Limnia (Greek), İkizce (Turkish) and Heipethes on some older maps.

Imia is located around 4.5 km east of the island of Kalymnos, part of the southern Sporades ( Dodecanese ), and 7 km west of the Turkish coast near Bodrum . There are two islands - a slightly larger island to the west and a slightly smaller island about half a kilometer to the east. The area of ​​both islands is around 4 hectares.

The dispute over Imia is part of a broader conflict that revolves around the use of the Aegean continental shelf and the definition of the sea boundaries, but also the boundaries of the respective airspace.

1995/96 conflict

The situation around Imia remained largely calm until the end of 1995; however, there had been conflicts over other aspects of the Aegean dispute for some time. On December 25, 1995, the Turkish cargo ship Figen Akat ran aground off Imia and had to be salvaged. When Greek law enforcement officers came to the rescue, the captain refused them with the argument that the ship was in Turkish territorial waters and therefore had to be freed from Turkish tugs; Ultimately, the ship was towed by two Greek salvage tugs to the nearby Turkish port of Kiuluk. On December 29, Turkey delivered a verbal note to Greece arguing that the Imia rocky islands were part of Turkish territory and belonged to Bodrum Province. On January 9, Greece sent a note verbale via its embassy in Ankara, in which the allegations were rejected.

The incident initially received little public attention.

A report on the exchange of verbal notes on the occasion of the accident in the Greek newspaper Gramma on January 20, 1996, one day after the swearing-in of the new Greek Prime Minister Konstantinos Simitis ( PASOK ), got the ball rolling. The matter was discussed intensively in the media and the mayor of Kalymnos and a priest went to Imia on January 26th to fly a Greek flag. On January 27, some journalists from the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet took a helicopter to Imia, removed the Greek flag and replaced it with a Turkish one; this was broadcast live on a Turkish television station. The Greek government ( Cabinet Simitis I ) then ordered a ship from their navy to Imia and had the Turkish flag removed again on January 28 and the Greek flag put in its place. Simitis also had the Greek flag installed on the eastern island guarded by a few navy divers, but no Greek soldiers were stationed on the western island. There was a heated verbal exchange of blows between the Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Çiller and Simitis. During his first government declaration as Prime Minister of Greece on January 29th, Simitis rejected Çiller’s demand that the island's status be negotiated. The fleets of both states were put on alert. An attempt at arbitration by US President Bill Clinton , which began on the morning of January 30, was unsuccessful.

At around 2:30 p.m. on January 30, according to the records of the Greek General Staff, 33 warships were present in the area around the Imia Islands to the central Aegean Sea, 15 of them Greek and 18 Turkish. Around 6:00 p.m., a speedboat and a rubber dinghy of the Turkish Navy tried to land units on Imia, but both were pushed away by Greek speedboats. In a nocturnal commando operation, Turkey had the unguarded western of the two Imia Islands occupied by a military unit at 1:40 a.m. on January 31. A helicopter of the Greek Navy crashed at 4:50 am on an observation flight near western Imia; all three inmates died, the Greek side unofficially blaming Turkish shelling for this; officially, however, this incident was not further commented on.

US President Clinton, US diplomat Richard Holbrooke and NATO Secretary General Javier Solana held mediation talks again. The Turkish and Greek warships withdrew from the area around Imia. The territorial dispute was not settled; Prime Minister Simitis called Turkey’s actions aggressive.

Historical border regulations

Political map of the region around the islands of Imia / Kardak with the border according to the Ankara Protocol of 1932. The Imia islands are marked with a "G" and as being under Italian sovereignty (blue).

The Southern Sporades belonged to the Italian-Turkish war on the Ottoman Empire , in 1912 the Dodecanese to Italy had to cede. A final settlement of the ownership of the islands was then made by the Peace Treaty of Lausanne on July 24, 1923. In it, Turkey agreed to the cession of the Dodecanese to Italy. After Italy's defeat in World War II , its rights to the islands were transferred to Greece ( Paris Peace Conference 1946 ). Neither the Treaty of Lausanne nor that of Paris list all the islands affected, so it is not clear to what extent Imia falls under Turkey's renunciation of sovereignty over the Dodecanese.

Article 12 of the Treaty of Lausanne states that the sovereignty for a strip of 3 (land) miles off the Turkish coast remains with Turkey, unless otherwise there are no other regulations. Article 15 states that Turkey renounces the 13 largest Dodecanese islands listed by name, as well as "the neighboring islands". Imia is just outside the 3-mile zone, but is not obviously "neighboring" to other Dodecanese islands in the sense of Article 15 - the Turkish side points out that Imia is closer to the Turkish coast than to Kalymnos, the next island , which is explicitly mentioned in the contract, and that Imia should therefore be regarded, if not explicitly as the property of Turkey, at least as an island for which the contract did not make a final regulation. Greece, on the other hand, argues that it is clear from the context that Turkey cannot make a claim beyond the 3 miles.

After the conclusion of the Lausanne Treaty, there were a few different interpretations between Italy and Turkey (but these did not directly concern Imia). To rectify this, both sides signed a protocol in Ankara in 1932 , which was signed by representatives of the two foreign ministries. It precisely defined the border - documented by appropriate cartographic representations; Imia was awarded to Italy. In the later Imia conflict, Turkey pointed out that the protocol did not have the status of an international treaty, but the Greek side nevertheless sees it as a binding agreement and the Turkish side's admission at the time that Imia would not be used. In 1950, the boundaries of the airspace for air traffic were also agreed. In the corresponding agreement, reference is made to the mutually recognized sea borders; for the Greek side an indication that there could be no question of contractual sovereignty over individual islands. Maps of the agreement show Imia as belonging to Greece. Turkey has claimed that 1950 was not about sovereignty issues.

There were hardly any actual acts of sovereignty by the Greek state in relation to Imia before 1996, as the islands were considered too insignificant, but between 1984 and 2004 they were regularly used as pasture by a shepherd from Kalymnos . The shepherd stopped visiting the islands in April 2004 after the Kalymnos Municipality cut the travel allowance for his boat in 2002. Several other Aegean islands to which Turkey claims are also inhabited, others have lighthouses and the like. Ä., whereby the use always indicates Greek affiliation.

As for cartographic representations prior to 1995, most maps (including Turkish) show Imia as being owned by Greece. In 2004 Turkey complained that there were Greek topographical maps on which the nearby island of Zouka was marked as Greek possession, even though it was within the Turkish 3-mile zone. In contrast, the maps of the Greek Navy always indicated Zouka as Turkish territory. The Greek side admitted this as a technical error in the topographical maps and stated that Zouka did indeed belong to Turkey.

Third states have so far largely kept out of the legal assessment of the sovereignty issue. The US National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), which was founded on October 1, 1996, marks the islands in their maps published on October 6, 1996 and in all maps published below as "Vrakhoi Imia" (Imia- Rocks) under Greek sovereignty, without mentioning the Turkish name "Kardak".

Political Impact

Greece and Turkey have been embroiled in a costly arms race for decades. In 1999 a dialogue began with which Athens linked the hope of ending this arms race. When this broke up - around 2008 - Greece began negotiations with arms suppliers in order to include 6  frigates , 17 helicopters (estimated costs including armament: around 3.7 billion euros) and 5  reconnaissance aircraft for the Navy (250 million euros) to buy. In addition, Athens and Russia have negotiated the delivery of 415 armored personnel carriers. The BMP-3 is a mix of armored personnel carriers and light main battle tanks .

The right - wing neo - Nazi Greek party Chrysi Avgi (as of 2013) uses the topic of the helicopter crash every year to create a mood for territorial claims against Turkey.

In February 2013, SYRIZA dismissed Nassos Theodoridis as her representative in the Human Rights Commission of the Greek Parliament. He had previously stated that the Imia Islands belonged to Turkey and that Greece should respect Turkey's 12 nautical mile international zone. He also called the islands by the Turkish name 'Kardak' and referred to the national sovereignty of Greece as an invention that served to "lure the oppressed masses". SYRIZA distanced itself from the statements.

Incidents after 1996

In commemoration of the 19th anniversary of the helicopter crash, the Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos ( ANEL ), sworn in three days earlier, triggered a deployment of Turkish and Greek fighter planes on January 30, 2015, accompanied by high-ranking military personnel with a flight over the archipelago and throwing funeral wreaths .

On January 17, 2018, a boat of the Turkish coast guard and the gunboat Nikiforos of the Greek navy collided in the immediate vicinity of the Imia Islands. There was no damage to the ships.

On February 13, 2018, shortly after midnight, a ship belonging to the Turkish coast guard rammed the patrol boat of the Greek coast guard Gavdos , which was patrolling in the immediate vicinity of the island of Imia. According to information from the Greek coast guard, the lighter Greek boat was just able to avoid the much larger Turkish ship due to its maneuverability and avoid a serious vertical impact on the left side, but it was nevertheless grazed at the stern and severely damaged. The incident is widely considered to be the most serious pre-Imia incident since 1996.

See also

• List of territorial disputes
• Border between Greece and Turkey

Web links

• Representation of the backgrounds including maps
• Athanasios Manis: The Role of Media in the Imia / Kardak Crisis: The Importance of Media Influence and Its Limitations? (pdf, June 2009)

Footnotes

1. ↑ Defencenet magazine of January 7, 2011: Imia 15 years later.
2. ↑ Catherine Hadjidimos: The Role of the Media in Greek-Turkish relations. ( Memento from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 131 kB)
3. ↑ handelsblatt.com / Gerd Höhler April 10, 2018: Greece and Turkey are arming
4. ↑ Der Spiegel of November 3, 1997: Our neighbor is aggressive. (Interview)
5. ↑ ANT1 television channel: [1]
6. ↑ Imia Rocks Maps . Hri.org. Retrieved August 25, 2015.
7. ↑ John Sitilides-The Western Policy Center: State Dept. to Pentagon: Imia is Greek. [2]
8. ↑ Tagesspiegel of January 28, 2009: Greece is arming - against Turkey.
9. ↑ Golden dawn vows to put a Greek flag on disputed Kardak islets. hurriyetdailynews.com dated February 3, 2013
10. ↑ Golden Dawn Marks 1996 Imia Crisis. greece.greekreporter.com of February 3, 2013
11. ↑ SYRIZA Sacks MP For Backing Turkey. Greek Greece Reporter, February 7, 2013
12. ↑ SYRIZA distances itself from Nasos Theodoridis. To Vima , February 7, 2013
13. ↑ Leftist MP sacked from parliamentary commission following controversial Imia comments. Ekathimerini , February 7, 2013.
14. ↑ zeit.de
15. ^ Spiegel.de: Nationalistic stunt: Greek defense minister triggers Turkish fighter jet deployment.
16. ↑ enikos.gr: Video document: The incident near Imia between the gunboat Nikiforos and the Turkish boat (Greek)
17. ↑ n-tv.de: Greek coast guard rammed-Turkey risks escalation in the Mediterranean