Turkey and Greece are again on a collision course in the Eastern Mediterranean. At Greece’s request, German Chancellor Angela Merkel asked Turkey to give her a chance to defuse the tensions. Turkey followed Merkel’s advice but, when Greece used this opportunity to sign an agreement with Egypt to demarcate their exclusive economic zones (EEZ), thus increasing the friction, Turkey last week resumed its drilling activities. The situation continues to be tense. The Turkish-Greek conflict has a multitude of aspects. This article will focus on only one of them: Article 7 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Greece, Egypt, Cyprus and Israel partitioned the Eastern Mediterranean without taking into account that Turkey should also have a share of the area. Ankara’s claims are based on the disregard of this share. Turkey objects to the criteria used by Greece to demarcate its EEZ. An imaginary scenario may help better depict the consequences of the method used by Greece. Let us suppose for a moment that Turkey possessed an island in the Black Sea, somewhere close to the Romanian coastal city of Constanta, and another on Russia’s coast near Novorossiysk. Now, let’s demarcate Turkey’s EEZ in the Black Sea based on these assumptions. The demarcation line would start from a point on the Turkey-Bulgaria border, go around the Turkish island near Constanta, and from there it would continue to Turkey’s island near Novorossiysk, before finally ending up at the Turkey-Georgia border. If you were to do this, Turkey’s EEZ would cover as much as 90 percent of the Black Sea. This is what Greece is doing in the Mediterranean. It has demarcated its EEZ by drawing a line around islands that are distant from the Greek mainland. The UNCLOS lays down clear principles on drawing the outer limits of a state’s EEZ. Article 7 — titled “Straight baselines” — is devoted to this subject. It aims to draw straight baselines to delimit the outer fringes of territorial waters. Paragraph 1 of this article reads as follows: “In localities where the coastline is deeply indented and cut into, or if there is a fringe of islands along the coast in its immediate vicinity, the method of straight baselines joining appropriate points may be employed in drawing the baseline from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured.” The purpose of this paragraph is to avoid the indentation of baselines. If there is a fringe of islands along the coast, they should be counted as part of the mainland and the line should be as straight as possible. Greece has an indented coastline and has delineated the outer limits of its territorial waters according to the provisions of this paragraph. But it has also included distant islands such as Crete, which is 99 miles from the mainland, and Rhodes, 226 miles away. Turkey objects to the criteria used by Greece to demarcate its EEZ Yasar Yakis Bearing in mind that some countries might be tempted to extend their EEZ to distant islands, paragraph 3 of UNCLOS article 7 states: “The drawing of straight baselines must not depart to any appreciable extent from the general direction of the coast, and the sea areas lying within the lines must be sufficiently closely linked to the land domain to be subject to the regime of internal waters.” Greece’s attitude is at odds with the provisions of this article when it draws its “straight baseline” beyond distant islands such as Crete and Rhodes. Straight baseline means to count the islands that are almost adjacent to the mainland. If you draw this line beyond distant islands, you acquire an unfair share of the sea between the mainland and these islands. Greece has several islands in the Aegean Sea, but is by no means an archipelagic state. An archipelagic state is defined in article 46 of the UNCLOS as a country that is “constituted wholly by one or more archipelagos.” Greece does not fit this definition because it is a state largely based on a mainland, but which also has several islands around it. Turkey therefore objects to Greece’s approach because it is in violation of article 7 paragraph 3 of UNCLOS. UNCLOS’ basic philosophy is the equitable utilization of the sea, and the International Court of Justice handed down several verdicts that invalidate the criteria used by Greece to demarcate its EEZ. The tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean are growing. A minor misstep could lead to an escalation. Even if there is a military clash, there would have to be negotiations in order to come to an understanding in the aftermath, so it would be wiser to negotiate now before such an escalation takes place. Yasar Yakis is a former foreign minister of Turkey and founding member of the ruling AK Party. Twitter: @yakis_yasar Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News" point-of-view