page_title: Aegean dispute
section_title: Islands
hierarchical_section_title: Aegean dispute / Islands
context_page_description: 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, and has twice led to crises coming close to the outbreak of military hostilities, in 1987 and in early 1996. The issues in the Aegean fall into several categories:
  The delimitation of territorial waters,
  The delimitation of national airspace,
  The delimitation of exclusive economic zones and the use of the continental shelf,
  The role of flight information regions for the control of military flight activity,
  The issue of the demilitarized status assigned to some of the Greek islands in the region,
  Turkish claims of "grey zones" of undetermined sovereignty over a number of islets, most notably the islets of Imia/Kardak.
context_section_description: There have been a number of disputes related to the territories of the Greek islands themselves. These have related to the demilitarized status of some of the main islands in the area; to Turkish concerns over alleged endeavours by Greece to artificially expand settlements to previously uninhabited islets; and to the existence of alleged "grey zones", an undetermined number of small islands of undetermined sovereignty.
caption: Islands by date of accession to Greece