The Convention, signed in
Ankara on January 4, 1932, by the
Italian Plenipotentiary, Ambassador
Pompeo Aloisi, and the
Turkish foreign minister
Tevfik Rüştü Aras, settled a dispute that had arisen in the aftermath of the
Treaty of Lausanne of 1923, about the sovereignty over a number of small islets and the
delimitation of the
territorial waters between the coast of
Anatolia and the island of
Kastellórizo, which had been an Italian possession since 1921. Through the convention, the islets situated inside the bay of the harbour of Kastellorizo, along with the islands of
Rho and
Strongili further off, were assigned to Italy, while all other islets in the surrounding area were assigned to Turkey. The names in italian and Turkish languages in the area around the
Bodrum area (of the western Anatolia peninsula) are shown in the following section: Moreover, the Italian Government recognised the sovereignty of Turkey over the Aegean islet of
Kara Ada (
Greek: Arcos), situated in front of the town of
Bodrum. In an
Appendix signed in December of the same year, the two countries agreed to extend the convention delimiting the sea border between the Anatolian coast and the Italian
Dodecanese. This was done by defining thirty five points which were equidistant between Italian and Turkish territory (some are shown in image below). The validity of the appendix became a political issue in the context of the
Aegean dispute in 1996, after the
Imia/Kardak crisis. The Turkish government has rejected it as legally invalid, on the grounds that it was not deposited at the
League of Nations in
Geneva. This, according to the Turkish view, means that the sovereignty over an unknown number of small islets and rocks in the Dodecanese may be still undefined. However, the validity of the convention itself, with respect to Kara Ada and the Kastellórizo region, is not under dispute. ==See also==