The semi-enclosed1 Aegean Sea is located between the Greek and Turkish mainlands; it is connected to the fully enclosed Marmara Sea and Black Sea in the north and to the open Mediterranean Sea in the south. The Aegean Sea covers about 214,000 square kilometres between the geographic coordinates 41° to 35° North and 23° to 27°/28° East. It contains more than 1,800 islands, islets and rocks, although only about a hundred of these are inhabited, with the rest being uninhabitable due to unsuitable conditions (Başeren, 2006, 5–7; İnan and Acer, 2004, 1). As a passage between the closed-off bodies of water to the north and the open Mediterranean Sea, the Aegean Sea is vital to both Turkey and the littoral states of the Black Sea.

As the two littoral states, Turkey and Greece have been at odds for decades over disputes in the Aegean Sea. The main sources of this contention relate to sovereignty rights over the islands, islets and rocks in the Aegean Sea, the delimitation of maritime boundaries and the continental shelf, the breadth of territorial waters, control over the airspace and the demilitarised status of the East Aegean islands. However, the two countries are unable to define even the exact number of conflict areas; in fact, Greece has only endorsed the continental shelf issue among all other prevailing challenges. In either way, in essence, ‘conflict is not the territory itself, but mainly about control over the vital area of the Aegean Sea’ (Siegl, 2002, 41).

In the eyes of Turkish decision-makers, Greece's claims over territorial waters and airspace in the Aegean would effectively turn it into a ‘Greek lake’, and Turkey would be locked out of the Aegean Sea (Bolukbaşı, 1992, 38). Turkey's insistent perception of an existential security threat emanating from Greece and reference to the survival of the referent object is regularly visible in the statements of the Turkish elites. For instance, Ambassador Şukru Elekdağ, a former under-secretary to the minister of foreign affairs, has argued: ‘The military equipment trends of Greece between 1989 and 1995 as well as the defence expenditures showed its intention to change the balance of air and naval power in the Aegean in its favour, which are detrimental to the vital interests of Turkey’ (Elekdağ, 1996, 35–37).