Turkey Rejects Greece’s DMP Map, Calling It “Unlawful and Destined to Fail”

In a statement shared on X, Keçeli reacted to the Greek Maritime Spatial Planning Map registered on the EU DMP Platform, stressing that Turkey closely follows DMP efforts carried out in line with recommendations from relevant United Nations bodies. He recalled that Turkey announced its national DMP on 16 April and notified it to the UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission on 12 June.

Keçeli noted that the Greek map, which infringes upon Turkey’s maritime jurisdiction in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean, had been updated on the European Commission’s website with reference to “competent Greek authorities.”

He said Greece was attempting to use the DMP map “to push, through the EU, an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the Eastern Mediterranean that it has not officially declared—while continuing to ignore the fundamental principles of international maritime law.”

“Turkey rejects this unlawful fait accompli,” he said.

Keçeli added that Turkey had already submitted its comprehensive legal position regarding the outer limits of its continental shelf in the Eastern Mediterranean to the UN on 18 March 2020. Therefore, he said, the so-called EEZ depicted in the Greek DMP map “falls within the Turkish continental shelf.”

He concluded that Greece’s attempt to legitimise its imagined EEZ and unilaterally drawn outer continental shelf boundaries through the DMP map “is contrary to international law and destined to fail.”