Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan warned Greece over the status of its eastern Aegean islands, saying Greek sovereignty depended on not militarising them.
“[Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos] Mitsotakis probably does not know that the sovereignty of these islands was given to him on the condition that they remain under a demilitarised status, so he will learn about it,” Erdoğan said in an interview with Turkey’s state-run TRT television on Monday.
When the time comes, Turkey will do whatever is necessary, he said.
Turkey says the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne and the 1947 Treaty of Paris require Greece’s eastern Aegean islands to remain demilitarised. It says that Greece has armed 16 out of the 23 islands since 1936 in violation of international law. Greece says circumstances have fundamentally changed and the restrictions do not apply.
The Greek foreign ministry says any requirement to demilitarise any of its islands was annulled by the 1936 Montreux Convention, referring to a preamble of the document which stated that Montreux replaced Lausanne in its entirety.
Source: Ahval
