The three-day visit that Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis recently paid to the island of Meis (Kastellorizo), staged under the guise of a commemoration ceremony, has proven that one of the most delicate balances in the Eastern Mediterranean has in fact been violated.

The presence of Chief of the Hellenic National Defence General Staff General Dimitrios Houpis, Parliament Speaker Nikitas Kaklamanis and the senior command echelon of the Armed Forces at the ceremonies, along with the prime minister's meetings with armed military personnel stationed on the Karaada (Ro) and Fener (Strongyli) islets and his inspection of the new pier and military facilities there, is a clear sign that the highest level of the Greek state has personally endorsed and owned the military presence on these islands.

These scenes, in which uniformed military personnel, armed soldiers and the official delegation appear together, constitute concrete proof that the island's demilitarized status has been effectively abolished. Mitsotakis, who now holds the distinction of being the first Greek prime minister to visit Meis, Karaada and Fener on the same itinerary, has thereby documented with his own hands a violation that his government has tried to deny for years.

Recalling that then-President Katerina Sakellaropoulou landed on the same island by military helicopter on Sept. 13, 2020, escorted by a radar aircraft and four F-16 fighter jets, it becomes clear that turning Meis into a stage for military display is no longer a one-off choice; it has become an entrenched state practice.

The legal framework violated by this practice is extremely clear. Meis was ceded to Greece under Article 14 of the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty on the condition that it remain demilitarized. The same article explicitly stipulates the demilitarization of the entire Dodecanese chain, while the relevant provisions of the Lausanne Peace Treaty and the 1914 Decision of the Six Great Powers reaffirm the principle that the Eastern Aegean islands may not be used for military purposes.

These treaties remain in force and are binding on Greece. The images staged over three days lay bare, one by one, just how far this obligation has been suspended in practice.

Pattern of habitual violations

The picture on display reflects a structural policy that extends well beyond the limits of a single visit. The militarization policy that Greece has pursued for years is a step that directly targets Türkiye's security. Turning a small island into a military base in this manner is a deliberate escalation of tension in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Athens' defense against the demilitarized status rests on two legs. The first is the claim that Türkiye, not being a party to the 1947 treaty, has no standing to object. The second is the argument that the right of self-defense under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter renders the demilitarization provisions void.

Both arguments stand on weak ground. Demilitarized status creates an objective regime that produces results in favor of all states in the region, and Türkiye's legal interest stems directly from its geographic position. Self-defense, for its part, does not confer the authority to suspend a permanent status assumed under treaty. Article 51 is conditioned on an actual armed attack and provides no basis for continuous deployment in peacetime.

The timing of the visit was no coincidence either. Türkiye's Presidential Decree No. 11626 of Aug. 15, 2026, which declared the Fethiye-Kaş Marine National Park off the coasts of Muğla-Fethiye and Antalya-Kaş with boundaries running just north of Meis, had been met with a harsh reaction in Athens. This tension escalated further with a Navtex issued between Sept. 1 and 15, 2026, announcing that the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye (TUBITAK) research vessel Marmara would conduct scientific work south of Meis. Greece responded by issuing its own Navtex, describing the area as its self-proclaimed continental shelf. Mitsotakis' three-day tour of Meis, Karaada and Fener grew directly out of the need to send the message that no ground would be given in the face of these Turkish moves.

The same line was continued in a written statement issued by the Greek Foreign Ministry on Sept. 16, 2026, which itself proved that Athens has no defensible legal counterargument on hand. The ministry merely dismissed Türkiye's claims as "unilateral" and reiterated, without citing any treaty article that it considers its defense measures to fall within the scope of the right of self-defense.

Repeating the same thesis year after year does nothing to strengthen a legal argument; it merely amounts to an admission that Athens has been unable to produce a convincing, text-based counterargument. Indeed, the claim in Greece's statement that Türkiye continues to maintain a "casus belli" threat over its sovereign rights is telling in itself. A party unable to respond on legal grounds shifts the debate toward a perceived security threat, making the discourse of self-defense the sole pillar of its position.

What is more, despite its claimed legal confidence, Greece has never once taken the matter to the International Court of Justice. Such persistent avoidance of binding adjudication by a party that believes itself to be legally in the right is itself a sign of weakness. Türkiye's official line of protest, sustained for years, is likewise no coincidence. In an objective territorial regime such as demilitarized status, continuous and uninterrupted objection is the only legal safeguard that forecloses any claim of tacit acceptance.

The fact that the prime minister toured islet after islet accompanied by the chief of the general staff, posing alongside armed personnel, and that the military delegation did not even step out of frame while laying a wreath at the monument dedicated to Despina Achladioti, the "Lady of Ro," lends Athens' own protocol archive in support of what Ankara has argued for years regarding the violation of the demilitarized status. Proving state practice in legal disputes is normally a difficult stage to establish, yet here the evidence comes straight from the camera footage of the very party committing the violation.

Mitsotakis' electoral calculation

The domestic political function of the visit should not be overlooked either. Greece is due to go to the polls in 2027, and the New Democracy party is facing serious erosion of support on the right. In his speech on Meis, Mitsotakis said Greece was threatening no one and would accept threats or instructions from no one, adding a warning that their cautious stance should not be mistaken for weakness.

The incentive packages announced during the same visit tie this rhetoric to a concrete policy. Military, security and public personnel serving on the island are to receive a permanent annual salary incentive of 5,000 euros, while households already living there or choosing to settle are to receive a separate annual incentive of 5,000 euros ($5,700), plus an additional 1,000 euros per child.

This approach, which folds population policy and defense policy into a single package, turns the rhetoric of demographic revival on an island where the demilitarized status is openly violated into a tool for legitimizing military presence. The political calculation of a prime minister who reduces sovereignty rhetoric to campaign material aimed at right-wing voters is being pursued at the expense of the binding force of treaty law.

The most striking part of the speech was the attempt to shift the address of the legal debate. By describing Meis as the easternmost point of Greece and the European Union, Mitsotakis implied that the island's territory is to be regarded as European territory. Athens' aim is to remove the demilitarized status violation from the realm of a bilateral legal matter and place it instead on the European Union's external border security agenda.

This strategy has been tried before over the Cyprus issue and worked to some degree. The Greek Cypriot administration's accession to the European Union in 2004, without the Cyprus problem being resolved, transformed the dispute on the island from a matter of negotiation between the two communities into a member-state issue for the bloc. This allowed the Greek Cypriot side to draw on Brussels' institutional weight for a negotiating power it could never have carried on its own, effectively enabling it to block a significant portion of the chapters in Türkiye's EU accession process.

Establishing the same equation in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean would place the bloc in the position of a party, narrow the ground for negotiation and make it harder for Türkiye to find an interlocutor. For this reason, Ankara's response should not remain confined to the level of rhetoric either. Violations should be recorded and conveyed through regular notifications to the U.N. Secretary-General.

Regional stability can only be achieved through the equal application of international law. The United Nations, the European Union and all relevant international actors should ensure compliance with treaty obligations and call on Greece to respect the law.