Greek FM accuses Turkey of making no effort to improve ties

"While we made a conscious effort from the Greek side -- such as the Greek prime minister's visit to Ankara -- Turkey did not reciprocate," Bakoyanni told Reuters.

 

"We have not had the improvement we hoped for this year."Â

 

"We will continue our strategy of trying to reduce tensions and resolve problems, but we expect specific steps from Turkey as well," she said.

 

A Turkish foreign ministry spokesman declined immediate comment, saying he needed first to see the minister's comments in full.

 

Turkey and Greece came to the brink of war as recently as 1996 over a contested Aegean islet. Their fighter jets still stage mock dog-fights in disputed airspace.

 

A Norwegian ship surveying waters for Turkey caused last month a longstanding dispute between Greece and Turkey to resurface. Greece accused the ship, which was conducting activities for scientific purposes on Turkey’s behalf, of prospecting for oil on its continental shelf.

 

Turkey and Greece cannot agree on the definition of the delimitation of the continental shelf, which allows a littoral country to exploit reserves under the seabed.

Both sides possess 6 nautical miles (11 km) off their shores in the Aegean, but Greece wants to expand this to 12 miles under the Law of the Sea. Turkey says this rule cannot apply in the Aegean and has said its application would be a cause for war.

The continental shelf is mostly defined as an area that extends at most for 200 nautical miles under international law, but the closeness of the Greek islands on the Aegean and the Mediterranean to the Turkish landmass causes disputes over what extent the standard applies in the region. Turkey says the Greek continental shelf begins from the Greek mainland.

"This is anachronistic and outside the logic of international law to have casus belli because a country ratifies the Law of the Sea," Bakoyanni told Reuters.