Aegean Sea is a part of the Mediterranean Sea, located between the Greek Peninsula and Asia Minor Peninsula. It is 6 10 km long from north to south and 300 km wide from east to west, with an area of 214,000 square kilometers, which is smaller than the Persian Gulf. Aegean Sea is bordered by Mediterranean Sea in the south, Daniil Strait, Marmarak Sea and Bosporus Strait in the northeast to the Black Sea, and Crete Island in the south.
Crete, the largest island in the Aegean Sea, with an area of about 8,300 square kilometers, is a barrier to the southern Aegean Sea.
The distance between adjacent islands in the Aegean Sea is very short. Standing on an island, you can clearly see the opposite island. There are so many islands in the Aegean Sea that no sea in the world can compare with them.
Aegean islands are not coral reefs or smaller coral islands, there are many larger islands.
Greece and Turkey have been fighting for the Aegean Sea!
Someone once joked: Do you want to upset the Turks? Let him have a look around the Aegean Sea. There is a simple reason. Most of the islands on the west coast of Turkey do not belong to Turkey, but to Greece, the enemy of Turkey. Only Gekeshi Island in the northern Aegean Sea and some small islands in the south-central part belong to Turkey. There is a saying that Turkey only has the coastline of the Aegean Sea, and there is no estuary of the Aegean Sea. Although this statement is slightly exaggerated, it also has some truth. Since most Aegean islands belong to Greece, this means that Greece's territorial waters are very close to Turkey's coastline. When Turkish ships leave the east coast of Aegean Sea, they may enter Greek territorial waters if they are not careful.
What's more, most Aegean islands are owned by Greece, which seriously reduces the importance of the Black Sea Strait to Turkey. North of the Black Sea Strait is the Black Sea, which is one of the most important sea areas in Russia. Russia must maintain its strategic presence in the Middle East, which is rich in oil and natural gas, in order to participate in the global oil and natural gas pricing power dispute. The shortest route for Russian warships to go to the Middle East is to leave the Black Sea Strait and cross the Aegean Sea into the Mediterranean Sea (for example, to Syria on the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea). However, most Aegean islands belong to Greece, which reduces Turkey's confidence in making demands on Russia, but increases Greece's confidence in making demands on Russia or the United States, which is unacceptable to Turkey.
Turkey is seriously dissatisfied with the division of islands in the Aegean Sea and believes that the Aegean Sea will soon become a lake in Greece. But the Greeks are also dissatisfied with Turkey's acquisition of some islands on the east coast of the Aegean Sea, and think that Turkey should not acquire any islands in the Aegean Sea. Because of the division of islands in the Aegean Sea, Greece and Turkey had a great contradiction, and almost broke out the war between the two countries.
During the period when the Ottoman Turkish Empire was strong, Turkey completely occupied Greece, and all the islands in the Aegean Sea belonged to Turkey. The Greeks did not want to be enslaved by the Turks, and struggled for hundreds of years. Until A.D. 182 1, a great uprising against Ottoman Turkey broke out in Greece. 1832, Greece broke away from the control of Ottoman Turkey and established a kingdom. The emergence of the Kingdom of Greece made Turkey lose control of the west coast of the Aegean Sea.
19th century (180 1 to 1900), the Ottoman Turkish empire declined obviously. At the beginning of the 20th century, Turkey lost the first Balkan war in 19 13, and Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro and other countries won with the support of Russia. The defeated country must cede territory, and the parties signed the London Treaty on165438+1October 3. The treaty requires Turkey to cede Crete, the largest island in the Aegean Sea, to Greece. The ownership of Lesvos Island and Samothrace Island is decided by Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia. In fact, these islands were only "exported to the domestic market" by the great powers, and then became Greek territory. Only a few islands, such as Gekeshi Island, were allocated to Turkey. Of course, Greece's acquisition of these islands is conditional, that is, Greece cannot build military buildings here that are not conducive to Turkey. Even if there are many rules and regulations, Greece will get these islands. Let's talk about it first.
1923 In July, Turkey, which had recovered its vitality, made great efforts to get the powers to abolish the Treaty of Seve, which seriously harmed Turkey's interests, and changed it to the Treaty of Lausanne. Turkey has also made some concessions to this end. For example, the islands outside the Aegean Sea, 3 kilometers from the Turkish coast, belong to Greece. Turkey was forced to accept this clause, and its anger can be imagined. There are many disadvantages for Turkey. For example, in 1947, Italy and other defeated countries ceded some islands they occupied in the Aegean Sea to Greece in World War II. This has nothing to do with Turkey, which is an Italian-controlled island, but these islands are located on the east coast of the Aegean Sea, just at the gate of Turkey.
In order to acquire more Aegean islands, Turkey thinks it is necessary to renegotiate with Greece to determine the ownership of these islands. How can Greece spit out what it eats in its mouth, let alone an island? Even within its territorial waters, Greece does not want to give in. Greece adopted the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1995, which means that the territorial sea of Greece can extend to 12 nautical mile. In this way, the Aegean Sea will really become a lake of Greece, which is unacceptable to Turkey and it will not hesitate to fight for it. Russia also opposes Greece's expansion of territorial waters to 12 nautical miles, which is very unfavorable for Russian warships to enter and leave the Aegean Sea. Greece does not want to push Turkey and Russia to the wall. It does not implement the 12 nautical mile system, but claims that Greece has the right to expand its territorial waters from the current 6 nautical miles to 12 nautical miles.
In short, the dispute between Greece and Turkey over Aegean islands is now a dead knot, and it is difficult to have a good solution, unless war, in this form, may really have a good result.