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Comment by StavrosK | Hacker News Reader

I have a geopolitical question I haven't been able to answer: Greece claims its EEZ includes Kastelorizo and extends near Turkish shores (which is unreasonable, IMO). Turkey claims islands have no EEZ, and Turkish EEZ extends below Cyprus and past all the Greek islands to about the middle of the Aegean (extremely unreasonable and counter to basically all of UNCLOS, which everyone else recognizes).

Greece, Cyprus and Israel agreed to construct the EastMed Pipeline[0], which crosses into the Turkish EEZ and even territorial waters. Does that run counter to the UNCLOS or not?

Also, please correct me if I got anything in my understanding wrong.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EastMed_pipeline

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EEZ: Exclusive Economic Zone

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_economic_zone

(new acronym for me, and I imagine a few others too)

But once you know it, it's EEZ to remember.

Nope, some smaller shopping mall in Hamburg, Germany.

https://www.eez.de/ but to be honest, https://edeka-volker-klein.de/edeka-elbe directly adjacent is preferrable(for groceries, at least)

:-)

Slight correction, I don't think the EastMed pipeline would cross turkish territorial waters. Territorial waters only extend 12nm (22 km) from the shore. The pipeline would definitely not venture that close to the turkish shores.

Very likely, I'm going by maps like this one:

https://fanack.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2014/10/natura...

There's a "nose" that drops down from Turkey, and the EastMed pipeline goes straight from Cyprus to Crete, so it would cross into that "nose". It says "territorial waters" there, so I'm confused as to whether that's so or, if not, what it is.

Indeed this is a rather confused map, the zones demarcated in that map are the EEZ(Exclusive Economic Zones). As they are claimed by Greece and Cyprus. Two hundred nautical miles from their shores or the middle line where they overlap with the Turkish EEZ.

The crux of the dispute though is that while that's how Greece and Cyprus interpret their rights, there is no provision in UNCLOS for handling overlaps, it only says there should be an agreement.

As far as the pipeline is concerned, I think the Greek plan would be to make the pipeline, a bit more to the south where Greek and Cypriot zones meet.

Okay, that makes sense, thanks. I was wondering why those "Territorial waters" looked much the same as the EEZ claims.

Isn't EEZ more about resource extraction (fishing, oil) rather than construction? I don't think running undersea cables for example would violate EEZ.

I think so too, but territorial waters isn't the same, no? You can't cross into those without some sort of authorization, AFAIK.

I think the owner of the continental shelf (the bottom of the sea under the EEZ), has the right to deny the installation of cables or pipelines. That's how I read paragraph 3 of article 79 of UNCLOS.

See here https://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unc...

They have the right to limit it in their territorial sea (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_waters#Territorial...) but outside of that, their complaints are only valid if the pipelines would affect the state's ability to use its EEZ.

Which they might, if the cable happens to sit right on top of a drilling spot.

The likelihood of that seems astronomically slim, but it's still a possibility.

Isn't the entire Mediteranean Sea on the continental shelf? I don't think it's comparable to the shelf off the Atlantic and Pacific.

the eastmed is passing though what is greek and cyprus EEZ, not turkish. According to the UNCLOS (at least according to the reading that Greece does) turkey does not have a maritime border with Egypt because of kastellorizo.

That being said, Turkey has been invited to join the eastMed pipeline

Agreed, but from the images I've seen, the EastMed doesn't "dip down" under the Turkish EEZ (in the corridor between the Turkish EEZ and the Egyptian EEZ), it goes straight from Cyprus to Crete. Maybe the images are simplified, though.

There is no final plan yet, but it won't pass through Turkey's EEZ unless they join the eastMed forum.

Here s another image https://trendsresearch.org/insight/turkey-and-the-geopolitic...

That clarifies things, thanks!

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