Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has begun an official visit to Kastellorizo, planning to remain on the island for almost three days, in what is believed to be the first time a Greek prime minister has stayed there that long. The visit is meant to send the message that Kastellorizo is not remote from the rest of Greece and remains an undisputed part of Greek territory.
Kastellorizo, also known as Megisti, is Greece's easternmost inhabited island, sitting in the Dodecanese island chain close to Turkey's southern coast.
Mitsotakis, who has led Greece since 2019, has been accompanied since the previous day by the Chief of the Hellenic National Defence General Staff. Shortly before his flight landed, first in Rhodes, Greece recorded ten violations of its airspace by Turkish fighter jets and two aerial engagements over the Eastern Aegean Sea.
What Turkey disputes
Turkey has long argued that Kastellorizo should not be treated the same way as the rest of the Aegean in maritime negotiations. In 2011, then Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Kastellorizo belonged to the Mediterranean rather than the Aegean Sea. He formally asked his Greek counterpart at the time, Dimitris Droutsas, to exclude Kastellorizo from talks on delimiting the continental shelf, proposing instead two separate sets of negotiations between the two countries, one covering the Aegean and another covering the Eastern Mediterranean. Greece rejected the proposal outright.
Turkey has raised the same issue consistently since exploratory talks on delimiting the continental shelf between the two countries began in 2002. By splitting the negotiations into two tracks, Greece argues, Turkey aims to argue against applying the Law of the Sea in the Aegean while demanding its application in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Greece's position
Greece insists that any delimitation of maritime zones with Turkey must cover the entire length of the maritime border between the two countries, from the mouth of the Evros River in the north to Kastellorizo in the south, and rejects any partial agreement covering only sections of that border. Ankara, for its part, does not accept that the island should carry full legal effect in determining maritime zones.
What the treaties say
The Treaty of Lausanne and the Paris Peace Treaty both set out Kastellorizo's status. Article 15 of the Treaty of Lausanne records Turkey's renunciation, in favour of Italy, of all rights and title over a list of islands then held by Italy, including Astypalaia, Rhodes, Chalki, Karpathos, Kasos, Tilos, Nisyros, Kalymnos, Leros, Patmos, Lipsi, Symi, Kos and Kastellorizo. Historically and politically, Kastellorizo has always been linked to the Dodecanese, and administratively it has belonged to the Dodecanese since its incorporation into the Greek state.
The precise status of the smaller islets in the area was settled under a further agreement signed by Italy and Turkey on 4 January 1932, under the second paragraph of Article 16 of the Lausanne treaty, which also fixed the borders around Kastellorizo. That agreement placed under Italian sovereignty a group of islets within a radius drawn from the dome of the church in Kastellorizo town out to Cape Agios Stefanos, along with several islets outside that radius, including Ro and Strongyli.
The Paris Peace Treaty of 1947 confirmed the transfer of the islands to Greece. Article 14 of that treaty states that Italy cedes to Greece, in full sovereignty, the Dodecanese islands, including Astypalaia, Rhodes, Chalki, Karpathos, Kasos, Tilos, Nisyros, Kalymnos, Leros, Patmos, Lipsi, Symi, Kos and Kastellorizo, along with their adjacent islets.
Why Kastellorizo matters for Greece's maritime claims
Kastellorizo plays a major role in how Greece draws its exclusive economic zone, since it allows Greece's zone to connect with Cyprus's. A glance at the map shows an arc running from Crete to Kastellorizo, a geographic reality that does not change regardless of how many airspace violations Turkey carries out or what Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says.
