Turkish legal position on Eastern Med issues stems from various judgments by international bodies of adjudication and based on the principles that:

-islands cannot have a cut-off effect on the coastal projection;
-islands which lie on the wrong side of the median line between 2 mainlands cannot create maritime jurisdiction areas beyond their territorial waters;

-the length and direction of the coasts should be considered in delineating maritime jurisdiction areas.

When a line is drawn at an equal distance between Turkish and Greek mainlands, all Greek islands lying to the east of this line distorts equity. Turkey argues that these islands should not be granted CS/EEZ.

This position is supported by a number of judgments of international courts and state practice. Islands distorting the equity should not be granted maritime jurisdiction areas (CS/EEZ).

According to the maximalist position of Greek/Greek Cypriots, all islands automatically generate CS/EEZ, based merely on the letter of Article 121 of UNCLOS on regime of islands. However, entitlement and delimitation are different concepts.

The maximalist claims of Greek/GC duo aggressively manifest themselves in the Seville Map, which grants Gulf of Antalya as the only significant maritime jurisdiction area to Turkey. This is obviously not acceptable to the country with the longest continental coastline in EastMed.

The island of Kastellorizo is the flagship of and a case-in-point of these Greek allegations. Greece claims that this 10 km2 island, lying 2 km away from the Turkish mainland and 580 km away from the Greek mainland is supposed to create a 40.000 km2 CS / EEZ area.

Turkey is ready to start meaningful bilateral negotiations with Greece without any preconditions and has also accepted several facilitation efforts to this end.