Turkey has added two new marine protected areas to its national marine spatial-planning map registered with UNESCO, drawing an immediate rebuke from Greece over disputed waters in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean.
The map, prepared by Ankara University’s National Center for the Law of the Sea (DEHUKAM) with input from government agencies, was lodged in June with the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. DEHUKAM said on Saturday that the map now includes conservation zones off Gökçeada in the north Aegean and off Turkey’s southwestern Mediterranean coast between the towns of Fethiye and Kaş.
Officials told Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency that the additions are designed to protect marine ecosystems and will not restrict navigation or commercial shipping. They added that further designations are planned in all of Turkey’s surrounding seas. The Agriculture and Forestry Ministry and the Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change Ministry are working on regulatory frameworks for the new zones.
The move follows the creation of a Marine Spatial Planning Coordination Board by a presidential circular on July 24, tasked with monitoring sectoral activity at sea and coordinating environmental policy. The board will operate under the foreign ministry.
Athens responded sharply, condemning Ankara’s declaration of marine parks “in non-delimited zones beyond Turkish territorial waters” as “unacceptable, unilateral and illegal.” The Greek Foreign Ministry said the zones have “no legal effect” and violate international maritime law.
The latest friction comes less than two weeks after Greece announced two large marine parks of its own, one in the Ionian Sea and another in the south Aegean, as part of a pledge to protect 30 percent of its national waters by 2030 and to ban bottom trawling in all reserves by the end of the decade.
Turkey objected to that July 21 announcement, accusing Greece of exploiting environmental initiatives to bolster territorial claims in disputed areas and warning against unilateral actions in semi-enclosed seas such as the Aegean. Greece rejected those claims, saying its parks are rooted solely in ecological goals.
The two NATO allies have a long history of maritime disputes, including over sovereignty of islands, islets and maritime features in the Aegean. Relations improved slightly after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis signed the “Athens Declaration on Friendly Relations and Good-Neighborliness” in December 2023, but the marine park controversy exemplifies the fragility of the current detente.