Foreign Ministry spokesperson Stratos Efthymiou’s response to a journalist’s question on a statement from the spokesperson for the Turkish Foreign Ministry regarding the status of Imia

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Stratos Efthymiou made the following statement in response to a journalist’s question on a statement from the spokesperson for the Turkish Foreign Ministry regarding the status of Imia:

“The public reiteration of a legally groundless position does not make that position any less unsound, nor can it lend it any legal standing.

The legal status in the Aegean has been clarified explicitly in the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, the Italian-Turkish Convention and Protocol of 1932, and the 1947 Treaty of Paris, which clearly determine Greece’s sovereignty over the islands and islets of the Aegean, including Imia.

Turkey needs to decide whether or not it respects international law, international conventions and agreements. It needs to make clear whether it perceives that international law stands above domestic expediencies.”