In February 1995 the PASOK administration introduced Law 2292/1995. It is the first detailed public document on KYSEA with reference to the special responsibilities of the Defence Secretary, the Chief of the General Staff and the Chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Force Staff in ‘times of emergency’. Law 2292/1995 retained the provisions on KYSEA membership which were included in Law 1266/1982. KYSEA had the authority to vote on the ‘system of crisis management’ (this is one of the first ever references in a Greek legal document) and ‘to give the Defence Secretary policy directions’ (Article 3 par. 1e). KYSEA also had the authority to formulate ‘the policy and the collection priorities and the exploitation of strategic intelligence related to national defence’ (Article 3 par. 1h). However the document did not include a definition of ‘strategic intelligence’. The Defence Secretary ‘in co-ordination with other secretaries provided general directions for national defence planning of NIS and of other security services’ (Article 5, par.6c).
The Chief of the General Staff is responsible for the ‘overall threat assessment with the contribution of the General Staff and other authorised government agencies’. The Chief of the General Staff is authorised ‘to formulate strategic assessments within the zone of interest of the country’ (Article 11 par. 8e) and organises the ‘joint system of collection, processing and exploitation of military intelligence, issuing directives and identification of intelligence requirements for the authorised government agencies. Their task is to provide support for operational planning’ (Article 11 par .8z). These provisions gave the chief an unprecedented privilege and monopoly on threat assessment and sidelined NIS as an institution. During periods of war, national emergency or ‘in case of imminent threat to territorial integrity’ the KYSEA ‘decides on the jurisdiction of the chief of the National Defence General Staff who is authorised to have direct jurisdiction over NIS and other public security services’ (Article 11 par. 19 a1). Following a decision by KYSEA, article 22 promoted the Chief of the General Staff to a General-in-Chief in times of war, general mobilisation or an ‘imminent threat to the territorial integrity of the country’. This term refers to Greek fears of a possible Turkish threat to the sovereign rights, the air and the sea borders of islands in the Aegean.
The intelligence and crisis management legislation from 1977 to 1995 was characterised by attempts to centralise political control under the Prime Minister, his Secretaries and the command of the armed forces under the Chief of the General Staff. KYP/NIS was sidelined and essentially placed under MoD jurisdiction in times of war or crisis. NIS did not gain an official intelligence role in support of KYSEA and it was not until 1992 that the NIS director was named official ‘intelligence advisor’ to KYSEA. As a Major-General admitted, in the 1980s and 1990s, NIS could not provide special military intelligence to the MoD and to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The poor regard for the performance of NIS in matters of intelligence and espionage lead to the marginalisation of the service with Law 2292/95.77 The Greek legal framework regarding intelligence services and crisis management demonstrates a monocentrist approach to leadership-intelligence relations.78 Throughout the period under examination, NIS/KYP leaders were limited to information gathering and delivery and certainly had no authority to consult with the chief of the General Staff on equal terms or to provide official advice to the cabinet. The politicians assigned issues of intelligence to military officers and therefore, intelligence was regarded as only military information.
Greek-Turkish antagonism and legal arguments
From 1974 until the present day, several geographical areas have dominated the Greek-Turkish disputes. These include the continuation of the Turkish occupation of the north coast of the Republic of Cyprus, the delimitation of the Aegean Sea continental shelf, the sea and air borders within the Aegean, the international aviation responsibilities between the two countries and the NATO assigned operational responsibilities over the Aegean.
In 1996 Turkey declared that ‘some areas’ (i.e. East Aegean islets) had no clear sovereignty status. Ankara did not define the number and the location of these so-called disputed ‘grey zones,’ and this caused Greek frustration and encouraged fresh assessments of Turkey’s seemingly expansionist intentions. The sovereignty dispute over the Imia Aegean islets has been the last major Greek-Turkish crisis until today. To fully understand the nature of the Aegean disputes, it is necessary to review the history of the legal positions of Ankara and Athens.
In May 1974, the Turkish survey ship Chandarli, escorted by 32 warships, conducted seismological surveys over the continental shelf in international waters. Athens protested without using force. The surveyed area in the North Aegean was outside Greek territorial waters around the Greek islands of Lemnos, Mytilini and Chios but within the part of the continental shelf claimed by Greece.
On 6 August 1974, seventeen days after the invasion of Cyprus, Ankara issued NOTAM [Notice to Airmen] 714, requiring all flights in the mid Aegean to report to Turkish authorities. This challenged the air traffic control status quo over the Aegean Sea, as approved by ICAO in the 1950s.79 Greece rejected NOTAM 714 as it directly affected the airspace above her islands and in response issued NOTAM 1157, declaring the entire Aegean Flight Information Region (FIR) a ‘dangerous area’. Considerable Athens FIR violations by Turkish Air Force aircraft occurred on 20, 27 March and on 3-4 April 1975. In April 1981, on the eve of discussions between Turkish and Greek FIR specialists, the Turkish Air Force violated the Athens FIR and the Greek national airspace. Eventually, bilateral discussions failed to reach an agreement.80 The Greek MoD assumed that the NOTAM 714 Aegean delimitation showed Turkish strategic intentions. Turkey simply divided the Aegean at roughly the same locations she intended to share the Aegean Sea continental shelf. The perception of linked issues and disputes (i.e. the Greek belief NOTAM 714 had been linked to the Turkish positions on the continental shelf) had prevailed within the MoD and the echelons of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 1974.81
Moreover, Turkey did not accept the claim (incorporated in a declaration in 1931 which had not been challenged until 1974) that Greek airspace extended 10 nautical miles (nm) from each island’s coast. The Greek territorial waters were six miles off the coast and Athens had retained the right to extend them to 12 miles (according to the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention). In the 1980s, 1992 and in 1997 Ankara declared such a future Greek decision a casus belli, a cause for war. Turkey argued that in such a case the Aegean Sea would be turned into a ‘Greek lake,’ and the Turkish fleet would need to pass through Greek territorial waters in order to reach the high seas and the Aegean international sea corridors.82 Athens was irritated by the Turkish declaration pertaining to a threat of war and to the challenge of a legal right granted by the codification of customary International Law. The Greek military took this declaration as an unequivocal message of hostile intentions.83 The Turkish desire to divide the Aegean in half was considered for political reasons, while the Greek argument had been grounded on a legal basis. Turkish generals argued about the need for Turkish lebensraum and a ‘security zone’ in the Aegean while NATO considered the USSR as its primary threat.84 The term lebensraum is rather emotive to Western readers who may not view the Turkish foreign policy through this spectrum. Key Greek politicians and officers often referred to Ankara’s expansionist intentions to revise the Aegean status quo as a ‘lebensraum concept’, especially after the invasion of Cyprus and the casus belli declarations.85
Issues of the air and sea borders were concerned with the dispute over NATO operational command of the Aegean Sea. Until 1974, Athens had retained international airspace control over the Aegean. After the invasion of Cyprus, the Karamanlis administration decided to withdraw Greece from the military wing of the Alliance in protest of NATO’s failure to intervene. Karamanlis’s move was of a political nature but caused unpredicted operational problems for the MoD and Greek diplomacy. After the Greek withdrawal, Turkey sought to be assigned NATO operational control of the Aegean and thus challenge Greek operational rights (not sovereign rights) over the Aegean Sea and airspace. In October 1975, Greece decided to rejoin NATO. However Ankara had exercised a veto, rejecting the pre-1974