The Convention between Italy and Turkey settled in 1932 a territorial dispute between Italy and Turkey in the Aegean sea.

History

The Convention, signed in

Ankara Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and List of national capitals by area, the largest capital by area in the world. Located in the Central Anatolia Region, central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5,290,822 in its urban center ( ...

on January 4, 1932, by the

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

Plenipotentiary, Ambassador Pompeo Aloisi, and the Turkish foreign minister

Tevfik Rüştü Aras Tevfik Rüştü Aras (11 February 1883 – 5 January 1972) was a Turkish politician, serving as deputy and foreign minister of Turkey during the Atatürk era (1923–1938). Early years Aras was born in 1883 in Çanakkale. He graduated from th ...

, settled a dispute that had arisen in the aftermath of the

Treaty of Lausanne The Treaty of Lausanne (, ) is a peace treaty negotiated during the Lausanne Conference of 1922–1923 and signed in the Palais de Rumine in Lausanne, Switzerland, on 24 July 1923. The treaty officially resolved the conflict that had initially ...

of 1923, about the sovereignty over a number of small islets and the

delimitation Electoral boundary delimitation (or simply boundary delimitation or delimitation) is the drawing of boundaries of electoral precincts and related divisions involved in elections, such as Federated state, states, counties or other municipalities ...

of the

territorial waters Territorial waters are informally an area of water where a sovereign state has jurisdiction, including internal waters, the territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the exclusive economic zone, and potentially the extended continental shelf ( ...

between the coast of

Anatolia Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

and the island of Kastellórizo, which had been an Italian possession since 1921. Through the convention, the islets situated inside the bay of the harbour of Kastellorizo, along with the islands of

Rho Rho (; uppercase Ρ, lowercase ρ or ; or ) is the seventeenth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 100. It is derived from Phoenician alphabet, Phoenician letter resh . Its uppercase form uses the same ...

and Strongili further off, were assigned to Italy, while all other islets in the surrounding area were assigned to Turkey. The names in italian and Turkish languages in the area around the

Bodrum Bodrum () is a town and district of Muğla Province, Turkey. About 200 thousand people live in the district, which covers 650 km2 and includes the town. It is a port town at the entrance to the Gulf of Gökova. Known in ancient times as Hal ...

area (of the western Anatolia peninsula) are shown in the following section: Moreover, the Italian Government recognised the sovereignty of Turkey over the Aegean islet of Kara Ada ( Greek: ''Arcos''), situated in front of the town of

. In an Appendix signed in December of the same year, the two countries agreed to extend the convention delimiting the sea border between the Anatolian coast and the Italian

Dodecanese The Dodecanese (, ; , ''Dodekánisa'' , ) are a group of 15 larger and 150 smaller Greek islands in the southeastern Aegean Sea and Eastern Mediterranean, off the coast of Anatolia, of which 26 are inhabited. This island group generally define ...

. This was done by defining thirty five points which were equidistant between Italian and Turkish territory (some are shown in image below). The validity of the appendix became a political issue in the context of the

Aegean dispute The Aegean dispute is a set of interrelated controversies between Greece and Turkey over sovereignty and related rights in the region of the Aegean Sea. This set of conflicts has strongly affected Greek-Turkish relations since the 1970s, an ...

in 1996, after the Imia/Kardak crisis. The Turkish government has rejected it as legally invalid, on the grounds that it was not deposited at the

League of Nations The League of Nations (LN or LoN; , SdN) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace ...

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

. This, according to the Turkish view, means that the sovereignty over an unknown number of small islets and rocks in the Dodecanese may be still undefined. However, the validity of the convention itself, with respect to Kara Ada and the Kastellórizo region, is not under dispute.

External links

League of Nations Treaty Series volume 138
(Full text of the treaties as registered at the League of Nations, predecessor of the United Nations. The French version is the official one. 1932 convention to be found in pages 243-249)

History of the Republic of Turkey 20th century in Italy History of modern Greece Treaties of Turkey 1932 in Turkey 1932 in Italy Interwar-period treaties Treaties concluded in 1932 Treaties of the Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946) Boundary treaties Greece–Turkey border Italy–Turkey relations Dodecanese under Italian rule {{Italy-hist-stub

History

See also

External links