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In-Depth Analysis· Türkiye Marine Spatial Planning IOC-UNESCO registration 2025

Türkiye's Marine Spatial Planning and the 2025 IOC-UNESCO Registration

Türkiye's Marine Spatial Planning was unveiled on 16 April 2025 and registered with IOC-UNESCO on 12 June 2025. What it covers and what it legally means.

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By Political Ledger Editorial Team
Published:
⏱ 10 min read (2,126 words)

Why It Matters

The 'Marine Spatial Planning of the Republic of Türkiye' is a national plan that sets out how Türkiye organises and manages its maritime areas in the Black Sea, the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean. It was unveiled on 16 April 2025 and registered with the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC-UNESCO) on 12 June 2025. Ankara presents this as the first time its maritime jurisdiction positions across all three seas have been lodged with a United Nations body. Legally, however, registration is a record and does not settle any boundary: delimitation in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean still depends on agreement or adjudication, and Greece and the Greek Cypriot side contest the plan's overlaps.

Background

What marine spatial planning is

Marine spatial planning (MSP) is a planning process that allocates sea space among uses such as shipping, fisheries, energy, cables, tourism and conservation. IOC-UNESCO promotes it through its MSP programme and the joint MSPglobal initiative with the European Commission. In the European Union, Directive 2014/89/EU obliges coastal member states to adopt maritime spatial plans. Türkiye is not an EU member, so its plan follows a national process.

Türkiye has the longest continental coastline in the Eastern Mediterranean, about 870 km (roughly 540 miles). It is not a party to the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and relies on customary international law and the principle of equity in delimitation. Maritime boundaries with its neighbours in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean are largely undelimited. The full legal ledger is set out in Blue Homeland (Mavi Vatan) and Eastern Mediterranean Maritime Jurisdiction: The Full Ledger.

Chronology

Date Event
2004 onward Türkiye begins notifying the UN of its Eastern Mediterranean continental shelf coordinates
2009 and 2012 TPAO (Turkish Petroleum) receives exploration licences in the Eastern Mediterranean
21 September 2011 Türkiye and the TRNC sign a Continental Shelf Delimitation Agreement
27 November 2019 Türkiye and Libya sign a Maritime Jurisdiction Delimitation MoU
18 March 2020 Türkiye formally registers the outer limits of its continental shelf with the UN
16 April 2025 The Marine Spatial Planning of the Republic of Türkiye is unveiled
12 June 2025 The plan is registered and recorded with IOC-UNESCO
24 July 2025 A Presidential Circular establishes the Inter-Agency Coordination Board under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

What the plan covers

The plan spans the three seas that border Türkiye: the Black Sea, the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean. It combines spatial planning for human activities with environmental protection. As part of this framework, a Marine Protected Area was designated off Finike on Türkiye's Mediterranean coast, which Ankara cites as evidence that the plan is an environmental and management tool as well as a jurisdictional statement.

The 24 July 2025 Presidential Circular

The Presidential Circular of 24 July 2025 created an Inter-Agency Coordination Board with its secretariat at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Its purpose is to coordinate the many ministries and agencies involved in implementing the plan, from environment and transport to energy and defence. Placing the board under the Foreign Ministry shows that Ankara treats marine planning as part of its foreign and maritime-jurisdiction policy, not only as a technical matter.

What IOC-UNESCO is and is not

IOC-UNESCO is the UN system's intergovernmental body for ocean science and ocean services. Its work concerns science, data, capacity-building and planning methodology. It is not a court, not a boundary commission and not a body empowered to recognise or reject maritime claims. Registration with it therefore carries institutional and technical weight, but no adjudicative force.

What registration does and does not mean legally

  • It does place the plan on the record in a UN-affiliated framework, which makes Türkiye's declared positions publicly visible and citable.
  • It does not establish a maritime boundary, which under international law requires agreement between the states concerned or a decision by a competent court or tribunal.
  • It does not amount to recognition of the plan's limits by other states or by UNESCO.
  • It is not a submission to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, nor a treaty registered under Article 102 of the UN Charter.

Key Players & Positions

Greece

Athens maintains that Greek islands, including those close to the Anatolian coast such as Kastellorizo (Meis), generate full maritime zones under UNCLOS, which it regards as reflecting customary law. It argues that any dispute over delimitation should go to the International Court of Justice and that unilateral planning maps cannot change entitlements. Greece also advanced its own national maritime spatial plan in 2025, and Greek officials and commentators have criticised the Turkish map for disregarding island entitlements.

The Republic of Cyprus (Greek Cypriot administration)

The Republic of Cyprus, which most states recognise as the government of the island and a member of the EU since 1 May 2004, regards the waters south of the island as its exclusive economic zone, delimited by agreements with Egypt (2003), Lebanon (2007, not ratified by Lebanon) and Israel (2010). It rejects Turkish overlaps with its licensed blocks. Ankara uses the term Greek Cypriot Administration of Southern Cyprus (GCASC) for this administration, because it considers that it does not represent Turkish Cypriots.

The European Union

EU institutions have repeatedly expressed solidarity with Greece and Cyprus in the Eastern Mediterranean and called on Türkiye to respect their sovereignty and maritime rights. Brussels frames the dispute through UNCLOS and the EU's own maritime framework.

Egypt, Libya and other coastal states

Greece and Egypt signed a partial EEZ delimitation agreement in August 2020, and both have rejected the 2019 Türkiye–Libya memorandum. Libya's positions have varied between its competing authorities. Other coastal states such as Lebanon, Syria and Israel have their own unresolved or partly resolved boundary questions.

IOC-UNESCO

IOC-UNESCO has not acted as an arbiter in this matter. Its role is to host a framework for ocean planning, and it does not adjudicate which party's maritime claims are valid.

🇹🇷 Official Policy · Primary Sources · Treaty Texts

Türkiye's Position on the Record

The points below summarise official Turkish policy as stated by Turkish government sources. They are Ankara's own arguments, presented as such.

  • Equity governs delimitation. According to the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, maritime boundaries in semi-enclosed seas such as the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean must be settled by agreement on the basis of equity, taking account of relevant circumstances, coastal geography and proportionality. Ankara argues that small islands lying close to a mainland with a much longer coast cannot cut off that mainland's maritime projection. It points to international case law that has limited the effect of islands, including the 1977 UK–France Channel arbitration and the 2009 ICJ judgment in Romania v. Ukraine.
  • The registration places Türkiye's position on the record. Turkish officials describe the 12 June 2025 registration with IOC-UNESCO as the first formal recording of Türkiye's maritime-area positions across the Black Sea, Aegean and Mediterranean with a UN body. Ankara frames this as a natural continuation of the continental shelf coordinates it has notified to the UN since 2004 and of the outer limits it registered with the UN on 18 March 2020.
  • Turkish Cypriots hold equal rights. The Turkish Foreign Ministry maintains that Turkish Cypriots, as co-owners of Cyprus, have equal and inherent rights over the island's offshore resources. Ankara cites the Türkiye–TRNC agreement of 21 September 2011 and the TRNC's hydrocarbon cooperation and revenue-sharing proposals of 2011, 2012 and 2019. See The Cyprus Issue: 1960 Treaty of Guarantee, Turkish Cypriot Equality and the Two-State Doctrine.
  • Maximalist maps and EU solidarity do not create jurisdiction. Ankara rejects the so-called Seville Map, which it says confines Türkiye to a narrow strip in the Gulf of Antalya, and argues that the EU has no competence to decide delimitation disputes between states. See The Seville Map Explained: Why Türkiye Rejects Its Maritime Claims.
  • Dialogue remains open. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's 2020 call for an Eastern Mediterranean conference including all coastal states and Turkish Cypriots, according to the Presidency and the Directorate of Communications, remains Ankara's stated route to a fair arrangement. Ankara argues that no energy or security arrangement in the region can last if it excludes Türkiye and the TRNC.

Legal and historical basis: Türkiye is not a party to UNCLOS and has long held that the Convention's island and delimitation provisions do not bind it. It rests its case on customary law, equity and the practice of international tribunals, as well as on its geographic position and its long maritime history, from the 1538 Battle of Preveza onward. The 2025 plan is also backed by a national capability: its deep-sea drilling ships Fatih, Yavuz, Kanuni and Abdülhamid Han and its seismic vessels Oruç Reis and Barbaros Hayreddin Paşa have taken part in eight major Eastern Mediterranean wells, according to Turkish official statements.

Source Comparison

Question International and Greek/Greek Cypriot framing Turkish primary-source framing
What is the plan? A unilateral map asserting maximalist claims in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean A national marine spatial plan combining planning, conservation and Ankara's declared jurisdiction positions
What does IOC-UNESCO registration mean? A technical recording with no legal value; sometimes described as a diplomatic gesture The first registration of Türkiye's maritime positions with a UN body; institutional recognition of the planning work
Role of islands Islands are entitled to full zones under UNCLOS Islands near a longer mainland coast should have limited effect under the principle of equity
Cyprus The Republic of Cyprus has sovereign rights over its EEZ Turkish Cypriots have equal rights over offshore resources, and no agreement can bypass them
Route to resolution Adjudication, for example at the ICJ, and respect for UNCLOS Negotiation on the basis of equity and an inclusive regional conference

Three points of analytical caution follow from this comparison. First, both sides agree on one thing: the registration does not itself delimit a boundary. Second, they disagree about what the registration signals. Third, readers should check each claim against the underlying documents: the plan itself, IOC-UNESCO materials, the 2019 and 2011 agreements and the court judgments cited. This is the approach described in Editorial Principles: How Political Ledger Separates Fact from Position and in the Reader FAQ: Sources, Methodology and Perspective.

  • Marine spatial planning (MSP): a public process for allocating sea space among uses and protecting ecosystems. It is a planning tool and, by itself, does not delimit boundaries.
  • IOC-UNESCO: the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO, the UN system's body for ocean science, data and planning guidance.
  • Continental shelf and EEZ: maritime zones in which a coastal state has sovereign rights over seabed resources (shelf) and over the water column and resources up to 200 nautical miles (EEZ), subject to delimitation with neighbours.
  • Blue Homeland (Mavi Vatan): the Turkish doctrine on the country's maritime jurisdiction areas in the Black Sea, Aegean and Mediterranean. See the full ledger.
  • Montreux Convention: the 1936 treaty governing the Turkish Straits, relevant to Black Sea security. See The 1936 Montreux Convention: How Türkiye Guards the Straits and the Black Sea.
  • Related reading: About Political Ledger: Mission, Perspective and Transparency explains the publication's perspective.

Perspective Note

Political Ledger presents global affairs with a dedicated perspective from Türkiye. Sections marked 'Türkiye's Position' reflect official Turkish policy as stated by Turkish government sources. Political Ledger presents a Türkiye-informed perspective, grounded in Turkish official positions, international legal texts and archival documents, and primary sources are cited so that readers can verify every claim independently. Published by the Political Ledger Editorial Team.

Cross-Publication Dossiers & Sister Desk Perspectives

For complementary primary-source analysis across our specialist editorial network, consult:

Frequently asked questions

What is the Marine Spatial Planning of the Republic of Türkiye?

It is a national plan for how Türkiye organises and protects its maritime areas in the Black Sea, the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean. It was unveiled on 16 April 2025 and combines the management of sea uses with environmental protection and Ankara's declared maritime-zone positions.

When was the plan registered with IOC-UNESCO?

It was registered and recorded with the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO on 12 June 2025. Ankara describes this as the first time its maritime-area positions across the three seas have been lodged with a UN body.

Does IOC-UNESCO registration settle maritime boundaries?

No. IOC-UNESCO is a scientific and technical body with no power to delimit boundaries or recognise claims. Under international law, delimitation requires an agreement between the states concerned or a ruling by a competent court or tribunal, so the registration records Türkiye's position but does not bind other states.

What did the 24 July 2025 Presidential Circular do?

It created an Inter-Agency Coordination Board with its secretariat at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The board coordinates the ministries and agencies involved in implementing the marine spatial plan.

How have Greece and the Greek Cypriot side reacted?

Greece and the Republic of Cyprus argue that islands generate full maritime zones under UNCLOS and that a unilateral plan cannot change entitlements, and they contest the plan's overlaps with the zones they claim. Ankara replies that delimitation must follow the principle of equity, that islands cannot cut off a mainland's coastal projection, and that Turkish Cypriots have equal rights over offshore resources.

Why is the Finike Marine Protected Area part of this story?

The Finike Marine Protected Area, off Türkiye's Mediterranean coast, was designated as part of the planning framework. Ankara cites it as evidence that the plan serves environmental conservation as well as jurisdictional purposes.

Perspective & Editorial Transparency Note

Political Ledger presents a Türkiye-informed perspective, grounded in Turkish official positions, international legal texts and archival documents. Primary sources (treaties, UN documents, Ottoman and international archives) are cited so that readers can verify every claim independently.

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