Greece and Turkey, in particular, strongly disagreed about the operational rights over the island of Lemnos (Northern Aegean, Greece). In 1977, the upgrading of radar capabilities at a Lemnos base was discussed at NATO level. Initially, the upgrade was considered a financial issue, but later became a military one because NATO planners sought to undertake military exercises around the area. Since the mid 1960s, Turkey had attempted to veto NATO exercises in the Aegean islands. At first, this did not cause concern to Athens because there was no challenge to Greek sovereign rights and because no oil deposits had been discovered in the seabed. Eventually, after the invasion of Cyprus, Athens began to interpret all Turkish actions as suspicious. In 1980, after three years of discussions, Joseph Luns, the Secretary General of NATO, rejected Greece’s request for financial support in the upgrade of the Lemnos radar. Contrary to Turkish arguments, Greece reiterated that the Montreux Treaty (1936) substituted the relevant article in the Lausanne Treaty (1923) regarding the militarisation of the Eastern Aegean islands for self-defence. Therefore, Athens retained the right to have defence installations there and thus receive financial support from NATO.87
On 2nd November 1978, NATO’s legal service accepted the Greek argument on the militarisation of Lemnos as the sovereign right of self-defence. Luns did not accept this advice and created the impression that he favoured the Turkish argument that the arming of Lemnos violated the 1923 Lausanne Treaty. Six years later, in 1984, Luns sent a letter to the president of the NATO Military Committee. His reference to the Lemnos issue was explicit and caused a strong Greek reaction. Luns wrote that ‘the Lemnos problem was a legal-political dispute between two member states. The planners of military exercises shall avoid incorporating Lemnos into NATO exercises’. Eventually, Athens decided against participating in the NATO exercises which did not incorporate Lemnos – where Greek, not NATO funds, maintained the defence installations.88
The former Chief of National Defence General Staff. Air Marshal Nikos Koures, claimed that the US did not approve of zones of operational defence responsibility over the Aegean. Athens did not consider the issue of operational control as operational/technical, but as political. American proposals for a ‘negotiated solution’ were viewed by Greece as a challenge to the existing international rules and status quo over the Aegean and as encouraging Turkish-Greek ‘dialogue’ under the auspices of Washington.89 Greece considered the NATO corridors of power as a ‘battlefield’ where Athens was on the ‘defence’ and Ankara, with ‘the patient strategy of the Middle East culture’, was attempting to manipulate the Alliance policy in favour of Turkish interests. Ankara sought to link the Aegean Sea disputes (FIR, continental shelf, islands demilitarisation, NATO command and control) because the Turkish military intended to alter the status quo in the Aegean.90
In January 1975 Greece proposed that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) should resolve the delimitation of the Aegean continental shelf. Initially, the Turkish Prime Minister Sadi Irmak accepted this offer but pressure from the diplomatic establishment and the opposition leader, former Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, urged him to withdraw his acceptance. When Suleyman Demirel took the Premiership on 6th April 1975, he stated that the dispute could only be resolved through a negotiated settlement. Turkey claimed that the Aegean was a special case and it would be more appropriate to proceed with bilateral discussions rather than seek arbitration through the ICJ.
In April 1976, Greece proposed the signing of a non-aggression pact. On 20th May, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs learned that Turkey was against such a pact and this caused worry about Turkey’s real intentions. As stated earlier, in public statements Ankara raised casus belli on the possibility of extending the Greek territorial sea to 12 nm and avoided addressing the issue of a ‘Greek-Turkish Non-aggression Pact’. In a message to Karamanlis, Prime Minister Demirel argued that a ‘non-aggression pact should come as the culmination of efforts to solve the Greek-Turkish problems peacefully’.91
Scientific research would soon become the pretext for a military standoff. On 29th July 1976, the Turkish research vessel, the Hora (or Sismik I), was dispatched to the Aegean to explore areas of the continental shelf claimed by Greece. Turkey maintained a low military profile with only one warship accompanying the Hora but the earlier (in March 1976) statement of the Turkish Secretary for Power and National Resources alarmed Athens creating the impression of a direct intent to challenge Greek sovereignty. The Secretary claimed that ‘the first thing is to establish our sovereignty rights in the Aegean in a way to leave no room for doubt…sovereignty rights are safeguarded by carrying out our seismic surveys’.92
Greece, despite the highly nationalistic tones of opposition leader and future Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou, did not react militarily; only discreet aerial and naval surveillance took place around the vessel. The latest research in de-classified files of the US State Department revealed that Washington was afraid of a Greek overreaction to the Turkish initiative; also the military threat to Greece posed by the Hora and the escorting ship was deemed low enough not to be an extensive files’ reference.93 The Hora reached the Greek-claimed continental shelf on 5th, 7th and 8th August making Athens fear that a precedent could be set. Karamanlis opted for diplomat’s contacts with the EEC and Turkey and abstained from raising the stakes, citing that Turkey had violated Greek sovereign rights. On 8th August Athens proceeded to an official demarche to Ankara. The Turks denied any violation of international law.94 Karamanlis and the MoD staff officers had grasped that the mere dispatch of a research vessel should not be dealt with militarily, since the escorting ship did not constitute a direct military threat. On the other side of the Aegean, the Turkish military assumed that so long as no one touched the Hora in her brief voyage, they should also abstain from any military adventurism; thus the posture of the Turkish military was deemed low. Ankara protested the alleged harassment of Hora on 11th August, warning that ‘the responsibility of any undesirable incident that might occur as a result of such provocative action will lie with Greece’. Athens publicly raised the stakes making known of ‘exceptional military measures’ with the deployment of warship near the sea sectors Hora was moving. A ‘qualified source’ even spoke of ‘Greece... on a war footing’.95 Beyond politicians’ statements, media speculation in Athens and Ankara at tactical level the situation remained calm and restraint ruled.
Thus, we understand that the criteria for military intelligence threat assessment (as presented in the introductory chapter) were not fulfilled by the Hora mission. A research mission that may have aimed to set a precedent (or just provoke a military initiative that could lead to the escalation of the crisis) should not be dealt with a military response (we shall keep this in mind while assessing the 1987 and 1996 Greek-Turkish crises).
In response to the Greek request for a UN Security Council meeting, Ankara declared that she had not violated Greek sovereign rights in any way since a settlement had not been agreed upon. The main Turkish position on the matter was that the continental shelf was ‘a geological prolongation’ of Anatolia and that each island did not have a continental shelf of its own. Greece rebuffed the argument and claimed that each island was entitled to a continental shelf. After the ambiguous Security Council Resolution 395, Athens sought the help of the International Court of Justice, requesting that the Court define the shelf delimitation and The Hague Judiciary ‘grant interim measures of protection from acts that could prejudice the outcome’.96 The granting of exploration licenses to oil companies by Turkey was deemed an act of ‘irreparable prejudice’ against Greek rights. However the ICJ did not agree and doubted whether the Court could exercise jurisdiction over the dispute without the expressed acceptance of both parties. Athens claimed that Turkey had in fact expressed jurisdictional acceptance, referring to the Agreement for Pacific Settlement