GREEK AMERICAN ORGANIZATIONS' POLICY STATEMENT ON THE AEGEAN SEA
BOUNDARY
WASHINGTON, DC—The American Hellenic Institute founder, Gene Rossides,
announced today that the major Greek American membership organizations
approved the policy statement on the Aegean Sea Boundary prepared
by the American Hellenic Institute. The organizations in addition
to the American
Hellenic Institute are: the Order of AHEPA, the Hellenic American
National Council, the Cyprus Federation of America, the Panepirotic
Federation of
America, the Pan-Macedonian Association of America and the Evrytanian
Association of America. The approved statement on the Aegean Sea
Boundary, which is
part of the 2004 Greek American Policy Statements follows:
Aegean
Sea Boundary
Turkey has made claim to one-half of the Aegean Sea and refuses to take
its claim to the International Court of Justice at the Hague for
a binding ruling. The U.S. should publicly state that it accepts
as final the treaty-defined demarcation of the maritime border between
Greece and Turkey in the Aegean Sea. The relevant agreements are
the Lausanne Treaty of 1923, the Italy-Turkey Convention of January
4, 1932, the Italy-Turkey Protocol of December 28, 1932 and the 1947
Paris Peace Treaty, under which the Dodecanese Islands and adjacent
islets were ceded by Italy to Greece.
The U.S. is a signatory to the
1947 Paris Peace Treaty and is obligated by U.S. law to carry out
its provisions. The State Department has
refused to publicly declare what the law is. It should do so now.
The U.S. should also vigorously repudiate any challenge to the
treaty-defined boundary and should urge Turkey to submit its claim
to the International
Court of Justice in The Hague.
For the full text of our policy statements click here.
For additional information, please contact
Angeliki Vassiliou at (202) 785-8430 or at angeliki@ahiworld.org. For general information
on AHI, see our Web site at www.ahiworld.org.
The AHI Business Network
is a division of the American Hellenic Institute initiated in 1989
to reach out to the business experience
of Greek
Americans and to put
it to work helping other Greek Americans. Its purpose is to share
business information and contacts. Its concept is people helping
people by sharing
experience, knowledge
and ideas.
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