Law of the sea

For the umpteenth time in the history of Greek-Turkish relations an effort is being made to avoid tensions, reach a minimum understanding, cooperate on issues of mutual interest and hold talks on more serious issues.

Sunken ships buried in the Gulf of İzmir during war, collision or malfunction are waiting to be discovered.

Since Matloob Hussain from Pakistan went missing during a deadly shipwreck off Greece last month, his brother Adil has left the door of his Athens home open in the hope he appears. It will stay open until his body is found.

The first full-sized 3D scan of the Titanic shipwreck published on May 17 may reveal more details about the ocean liner's fateful journey across the Atlantic more than a century ago.

The high-resolution images, published by the BBC, reconstruct the wreck that lies at a depth of nearly 4,000 meters (13,100 feet) in great detail and were created using deep-sea mapping.

The recent announcements in Israel by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a pipeline that will transport natural gas from Israel's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) to Cyprus for liquefaction (LNG) and export to European markets have, analysts say, all the makings of a new energy reality in the region.

Turkey's foreign minister has said there are islands in the Aegean "whose sovereignty has not been determined" and where there are "violations," in an apparent return to the questioning of Greek sovereignty over its islands in the region.

Deploying a practice from the distant past in recent months, as can be seen from the analysis of the data, Turkish authorities are testing the waters regarding the possibility of closing the bays of the Turkish coast and the islets belonging to Turkey to extend Ankara's waters and promote its maximalist positions.

"Kronos", "Glaucus", "Aphrodite", "Calypso" are planets, gods and muses, but also plots with trillions of cubic meters of natural gas in the Cypriot EEZ.

By Andreas Andrianopoulos*

This dance around the maypole of the Greek-Turkish rivalry with threats and at times more tense relations - with many foreigners, allies and others, at various times playing the role of mediators or agents for the defusion of tensions - cannot continue.

“Greece rejects the Turkish unilateral objections for the delimitation of the continental shelf in the Eastern Mediterranean”