in the Aegean in a way to leave no room for doubt…sovereignty rights are safeguarded by carrying out our seismic surveys’.92
Greece, despite the highly nationalistic tones of opposition leader and future Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou, did not react militarily; only discreet aerial and naval surveillance took place around the vessel. The latest research in de-classified files of the US State Department revealed that Washington was afraid of a Greek overreaction to the Turkish initiative; also the military threat to Greece posed by the Hora and the escorting ship was deemed low enough not to be an extensive files’ reference.93 The Hora reached the Greek-claimed continental shelf on 5th, 7th and 8th August making Athens fear that a precedent could be set. Karamanlis opted for diplomat’s contacts with the EEC and Turkey and abstained from raising the stakes, citing that Turkey had violated Greek sovereign rights. On 8th August Athens proceeded to an official demarche to Ankara. The Turks denied any violation of international law.94 Karamanlis and the MoD staff officers had grasped that the mere dispatch of a research vessel should not be dealt with militarily, since the escorting ship did not constitute a direct military threat. On the other side of the Aegean, the Turkish military assumed that so long as no one touched the Hora in her brief voyage, they should also abstain from any military adventurism; thus the posture of the Turkish military was deemed low. Ankara protested the alleged harassment of Hora on 11th August, warning that ‘the responsibility of any undesirable incident that might occur as a result of such provocative action will lie with Greece’. Athens publicly raised the stakes making known of ‘exceptional military measures’ with the deployment of warship near the sea sectors Hora was moving. A ‘qualified source’ even spoke of ‘Greece... on a war footing’.95 Beyond politicians’ statements, media speculation in Athens and Ankara at tactical level the situation remained calm and restraint ruled.
Thus, we understand that the criteria for military intelligence threat assessment (as presented in the introductory chapter) were not fulfilled by the Hora mission. A research mission that may have aimed to set a precedent (or just provoke a military initiative that could lead to the escalation of the crisis) should not be dealt with a military response (we shall keep this in mind while assessing the 1987 and 1996 Greek-Turkish crises).
In response to the Greek request for a UN Security Council meeting, Ankara declared that she had not violated Greek sovereign rights in any way since a settlement had not been agreed upon. The main Turkish position on the matter was that the continental shelf was ‘a geological prolongation’ of Anatolia and that each island did not have a continental shelf of its own. Greece rebuffed the argument and claimed that each island was entitled to a continental shelf. After the ambiguous Security Council Resolution 395, Athens sought the help of the International Court of Justice, requesting that the Court define the shelf delimitation and The Hague Judiciary ‘grant interim measures of protection from acts that could prejudice the outcome’.96 The granting of exploration licenses to oil companies by Turkey was deemed an act of ‘irreparable prejudice’ against Greek rights. However the ICJ did not agree and doubted whether the Court could exercise jurisdiction over the dispute without the expressed acceptance of both parties. Athens claimed that Turkey had in fact expressed jurisdictional acceptance, referring to the Agreement for Pacific Settlement of Disputes (1928) which Greece and Turkey had both signed and to the interpretation of a joint communiqué by the Greek and Turkish Prime Minister’s on 31 May 1975.97 Turkey replied that Athens and Ankara had not specified the Aegean Sea disputes, with the exception of the continental shelf, or the merits of an ICJ jurisdiction. According to Ankara, the fact that both states agreed to discuss the Aegean issues at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs specialist meetings, indicated that both parties sought a ‘political’ and not a ‘legal’ resolution to the dispute.98
After the Hora crisis in 1976, extensive Turkish and Greek diplomatic efforts resulted in the signing of a secret agreement in Bern, Switzerland on 11th November 1976. Athens and Ankara accepted a 10-article Procès Verbal which provided a framework for the settlement of the continental shelf dispute: Thus, ‘both parties undertook the obligation of avoiding any initiative or act in relation to the continental shelf, that could undermine the negotiations (Art. 6); both parties undertook the obligation to avoid any initiative or act that could downgrade the authority of the other party’ (Art.7).99 Finally in January 1979, the ICJ announced that The Hague did not have jurisdiction over the Aegean Sea continental shelf, although, the Court did not accept the Turkish request to remove the continental shelf issue from its case list altogether.100
The legal arguments and policy positions of Greece and Turkey included hints of strategic intentions to take dynamic measures or to go to war over the disputes in question. Turkey’s argument is based on political merit and Greece’s on legal merit, influencing perceptions of threat assessment. Moreover, the invasion of the Cyprus Republic and the continuation of the occupation, the Turkish refusal to sign a non-aggression pact, Turkey’s ‘casus belli’ declarations and the post-1974 Turkish challenges to the FIR arrangements, established the perception amongst the Greek foreign affairs and defence establishment that Turkey harboured long-term aggressive intentions and showed bad faith.101 Turkish and Greek political and legal arguments have affected the way political leaders, officers and diplomats interpret each other’s decisions and policies. The legal-political arguments and positions on the Aegean Sea dispute created distinct analytical ‘lenses’. Impressions of what was ‘lawful and unlawful’, ‘revisionist and pro-status quo’ affected Greek estimates. For example, the Turkish refusal to submit the continental shelf issue to the ICJ caused anxiety within the Greek government because the perceived weakness in the Turkish argument has indicated an intention to manipulate the dispute through political arbitration or even coercion.
A former Major-General and a law graduate argues that the legal disputes over the Aegean could not have led to a serious crises or bilateral confrontation unless there was a clear three-phase Turkish plan against Greece. He estimates that the first phase of the long-term Turkish strategy in the Aegean incorporates the ‘weakening’ of the Athens FIR responsibilities, by daily Turkish Air Force challenges and intrusions. The second phase involves the division of the Athens and Constantinople FIR in the middle of the Aegean and the third phase the dividing of the sea roughly in accordance with the FIR partitioning. Thus the Greek Eastern Aegean islands would be isolated from mainland Greece and almost placed under Turkish FIR operational responsibilities.102 However Admiral Antonios Antoniadis, the Chief of the Navy General Staff in 2002-2005, strongly dissented with this assessment. He made it clear that throughout the 1980s and 1990s he could not indentify the Turkish threat to Greece and claimed that the FIR dispute and the Imia islets crisis showed just the potential for small-scale hot incidents and not the long-term hostility of Turkey against Greece. He argued that sectors of the Athens FIR that did not correspond to national airspace were not Greek sovereignty areas and should not be treated as such. Antoniadis was clear enough in arguing that for three years he served as a military representative in NATO, for five years as head of the Directorate of Defence Policy at the National Defence General Staff, and later as Vice-Chief of the Defence General Staff and as Chief of the Navy General Staff; but ‘he could not indentify the threat’. He concluded that since for so long he could not see the threat there had to be ‘a gap on how this threat had been defined’.103 Turkey seemed challenging the Aegean status quo (i.e. the FIR and the continental shelf areas claimed by Greece) not because of expansionist strategy; according to Antoniadis, Ankara implement ‘military diplomacy’ just to test Greek politico-military reactions and assumed that Greek legal arguments had not be as strong as presented by Athens.104
A former NIS director warns that when studying the post-1974 Greek-Turkish relations and disputes over the Aegean, we should pay special attention to the chain reactions caused by the decisions, declarations and actions of Turkish and Greek diplomacy. By identifying which action caused which Greek or Turkish reaction, we may be able to fully define the real threat Greece faced in the 1980s and 1990.105 This book shows that Greece was not afraid of a Turkish invasion or military adventurism. Turkish politicians projected their national interests in the Aegean and created the impression that Ankara aimed to overrule the 1923 Lausanne Treaty, using force if necessary. However the majority of Turkish generals were unwilling to follow the ultra-nationalistic
