[DECLARATION ON THE INDESTRUCTIBLE AND UNCONTESTABLE RIGHTS OF GREECE TO THE AEGEAN SEA]

1. The Institute of Inter-Balkan Relations being unable to tolerate the mockery of legality by certain countries of Western Europe as well as the U.S.A., the indifference of ignorance of world-wide public opinion concerning the indestructible and uncontestable rights of Hellenism in the Aegean, which were provoked by the grasping disposition of Turkey against Greece concerning the rocky islets, is coming with the present declaration to fill the Vacancies in the lack of information, with the following brief account :

2. The contents of this text is addressed to those people of Western Europe, America, Russia, Eurasia, to the honest and peace-loving residents of Asia Minor, of far-off Australia and the peoples of Africa and the Middle East, who are refined and sensitive towards the values of human rights and justice.

3. The status quo of the Aegean sea was settled definitively and irrevocably by international conventions which were signed after fountains of human blood had flowed and human sacrifice in massacres was offered by Greece to the alter of freedom, democratic ideals and universal values.

4. The Aegean Sea, together with its coasts on each side of it, has been inhabited since the early-dawning of history by ancient Greek races and has comprised the cradle of Greek Civilization, from there, the candle-light of culture was transmitted to Europe and contributed to the development of European civilization, according to the French archeologist GLOZE.

5. Successive incursions and subjugations of the Aegean did not ever succeed in altering the indigenous Hellenism of its character. The Turkish author PIRI-REIS in his book on conquest by sea power BAHRIGLE which was published in 1512 A.D., acknowledges the Hellenism of the Aegean islands. In the same book, the author, albeit a Turk, maintains that “the Turks are simply barbarians, foreign military conquerors, whose only historic deeds are massacres, destruction, persecutions, oppression, conquest”.

6. The natural, geological and indissoluble cohesion of the thousands of Greek islands of the Aegean, compose an archipelagic established order, which constitute a natural extension of it. Athos, the island of Euboea and the continental coasts of mainland Greece, with which they are connected economically, culturally and nationally.

7. The Cyclades and the North Sporades islands constitute a part of the re-established Greek State, after the insurrection of 1821, by the protocol of London of 1830.

8. The islands of the eastern Aegean (Limnos, Lesvos, Chios, Samos and Icaria) which were liberated from the Turkish yoke upon the victorious struggle of the Greeks in 1912, were ceded to Greece with the convention of London in 1913 against the withdrawal of the Greek army from Greek Northern Epirus. With another convention of London, also in the same year 1913, the big island Crete was incorporated into Greece.

9. With the Treaty of Lausanne (24th July, 1923) :

a. Greek sovereignty on the islands Limnos, Lesvos, Chios, Samos and Icaria is specifically recognized.

b. Turkey acknowledges that only “the islands which lie at a distance less than three (3) miles from the Asiatic shores” (Article 12), belong to her.

c. Turkey renounces in favour of Italy every right and title on the below-enumerated island, that is to say: “Astipalaia, Rhodes, Chalkis, Carpathos, Casos, Tilos, Nisyros, Calymnos, Leros, Patmos, Leipsis, Symi and Cos, occupied at present (1923) by Italy, together with the islets dependant on them, as well as the island of Castelorizos.”

d. Turkey renounces every title and right of every kind on the lands, or in relation to the lands which lie further than the boundaries provided for by the present Treaty, as well as on the islands.

10. With the treaty between Italy – Turkey of 1932 – and the addendum attached to it -, the sovereignty of Italy was confirmed on the Dodecanese Islands, Castelorizos and the adjacent island and rocky islets, among which the rocky islets IMIA are also specified.

11. With the convention of Paris of 1947, the Dodecanese islands with the adjacent islets were ceded to Greece in return for her contribution, and in return for the holocaust she experienced, in the 2nd World War (Article 14).

12. Further to the above existing conventions concerning the sovereign rights of Greece in the Aegean, we invoke the rule of the mid-line – or mid-line distance – of the international customary law, with which the sea boundaries between neighbouring states are fixed, a rule which every State is obliged to respect, and therefore also Turkey, otherwise she places herself outside international legality and apart from the civilized nations.

13. However, of what civilized country are we speaking about, which, with the cover – if not complicity – of the self-blinding western governments ,proceeds in the genocide of the Greek Cypriots people.

14. We refuse to accept that civilized people will continue to remain indifferent in front of the continuing drama of divided Cyprus, particularly in the face of the cynical confession of R. Dectas that the 1.490 missing Greek-Cypriots, after the invasion of the Turks in Cyprus, in 1974, were slaughtered by paramilitary Turkish-Cypriot organizations… (!!)

15. We hope that the active citizens of all countries, especially of those countries which regulate the fortunes of the world, will not tolerate being offended by their leaders any more, who barter in the stock-exchange the universal values and principles of the international community – which are provided for by the charter of the United Nations organization and the final act of Helsinki – against whatever economic returns “of the large Turkish market”.