Acts of Piracy?

Knives slashed across the throats of two sheep, and their blood gushed out onto the quay jutting into Istanbul harbor. The traditional Moslem ritual of sacrifice was supposed to guarantee a safe voyage for a blue-and-gray-hulled exploration vessel named Sismik-1. As the 1,200-ton Turkish ship steamed toward the Dardanelles, she was saluted by a cacophony of ship's whistles.

Even before the Sismik entered the Aegean Sea, the Greek government had angrily threatened naval intervention, and last week it demanded a U.N. Security Council session to stop the Turkish ship. Retorted Turkey's Premier Suleiman Demirel: "Interception of the Sismik will be an act of piracy. Short work is made of pirates."

Huge Oilfield. The conflict was not simply over one ship, of course, but over its mission: to search for oil. Ever since the discovery of oil off the Greek island of Thassos in 1974, there has been speculation that the Aegean might contain a huge oilfield. For both, the cost of oil has consumed 80% of foreign currency earnings, so each considers the search for new sources a matter of survival. When several foreign companies rejected Turkey's invitation to explore the disputed waters, the Turks decided to set out on their own. At a cost of $3.7 million, they equipped a trawler with seismic devices for underwater exploration.

The dispute involves sharply different views of the laws of the sea. Greece, citing the Geneva Convention of 1958, claims that each of its 3,049 Aegean islands has its own continental shelf extending outward until the water reaches a depth of 660 ft. Turkey, which never ratified the convention, claims that the only way to define the border is by the Anatolian Shelf, which extends midway out into the Aegean. The Greeks maintain that their view was endorsed at this year's continuing U.N. Conference on the Law of the Sea. Says Turkey's President Fahri Koroturk: "The Aegean is an extension of Asia Minor, and we will never allow it to be turned into an internal sea of any other country."

By the time the Sismik reached the Aegean, the whole 17,500-man Greek navy--seven submarines, 15 destroyers and 25 patrol boats--was on alert. Its main points of concern were the islands of Lemnos, Lesbos, Chios and Rhodes, all within 20 miles of the Turkish coast. During her first days in the Aegean, the Sismik confined herself to what were clearly Turkish waters, but then she began taking soundings off Lemnos. The Greek destroyer Lightning was ordered to close in on the Sismik. Its instructions: "Hold your fire, but be prepared for any eventuality." At the same time, however, fresh Turkish troops of the Fourth Army were reinforcing the combat units already positioned on the Cesme Peninsula, within three miles of the Greek island of Chios. Through field glasses, Greek troops on Chios could clearly see the movement of artillery and amphibious landing craft.

In Athens, top Greek military commanders advised Premier Constantine Caramanlis to sink the Sismik. Socialist Party Leader Andreas Papandreou urged the same course. "Treat the Sismik as if she were Turkish troops on Greek land," he said.

Despite all the rhetoric, Caramanlis feared that a resort to violence might jeopardize Greece's efforts to join the Common Market, a basic policy of his two-year-old regime. So he decided to limit himself to diplomacy. In addition to calling for the U.N. meeting, which convened in New York and heard the arguments of both sides, without coming to a decision, he appealed to the International Court of Justice at The Hague for a quick ruling. He also called for a conference of the heads of state of all Balkan nations. And as a final touch, he sent a Greek oil-exploration vessel, the 1,300-ton Nautilus, out on its own survey of the Aegean.

So far, the only blood spilled has been that of the two sheep.

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