Greece has not given up its right to expand territorial waters to 12 nautical miles, Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetrit...

Greece has not given up its right to expand territorial waters to 12 nautical miles, Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis reconfirmed this week on SKAI, though he gave no timeline for when Athens might act. Greece currently claims only 6 nautical miles, half the maximum allowed under international law. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea explicitly grants every coastal state the right to claim up to 12 miles, and Greece says it can do so unilaterally. The country already exercised this right once, in 2021, but only in the Ionian Sea up to Cape Tainaro. The Aegean is a far more complicated case, and that is exactly where the dispute with Turkey becomes serious. In the Aegean, Greek and Turkish coastlines sit so close together that a full 12-mile zone from both sides would overlap in many areas. That geometry forces a delimitation process under international law, which Turkey refuses to accept on Greek terms. Ankara insists that several issues, including sovereignty over certain islands and airspace, must all be on the table. Athens rejects that framing entirely, arguing the only legitimate question between the two countries is where to draw the maritime boundary. A 12-mile extension would not close Greek waters to foreign ships. International law guarantees the right of innocent passage through territorial waters for all states. What it would change is the zone in which Greece holds full sovereignty, including control of the airspace above those waters, meaning Turkish military aircraft could no longer operate there without permission. South and east of Crete, the expansion also ties directly into broader Eastern Mediterranean energy politics, overlapping with disputes over exclusive economic zones and seabed rights where hydrocarbons may be present. #Greece #GreeceAegean #GreeceturkeY