Archive · the Aegean
In January 1996 Argyris Dinopoulos covered the Imia crisis for Antenna, from its outbreak — after Turkish journalists landed on the islet — through to its de-escalation. He reached West Imia on 29 January by caique from Kalymnos and returned to the surrounding waters on each of the two following days. By his own account, he was the last Greek journalist to set foot on Imia — on both the eastern and western islets — before they became a "grey zone". Thirty years later, in January 2026, he presented a documentary on the crisis carrying testimony from protagonists on both the Greek and the Turkish side. This dossier gathers both: the 1996 material and the 2026 retrospective.
The thirtieth-anniversary documentary, carrying testimony from protagonists on both the Greek and the Turkish side — among them the officer who led the Turkish commandos onto West Imia. It incorporates unedited material from Dinopoulos's own reporting on the two islets, together with a return to Kalymnos in January 2026.
Nearly an hour of raw footage from the three days of the assignment, 29 to 31 January 1996, before any edit selected its story. It keeps the sequence intact: the broadcasts from the caique's deck, Greek and Turkish warships a stone's throw apart, aircraft passing low over the rocks. As a primary historical source it documents at first hand a critical turning point in Greek–Turkish relations.
An interview with Admiral (ret.) Christos Lyberis, Chief of the Hellenic National Defence General Staff during the crisis, recorded on 3 January 2026 — thirty years after the events. The military command's own account of the hours in which the crisis came closest to breaking.
The last dispatch, 31 January 1996 On the morning of 31 January 1996, hours after the disengagement agreement and the helicopter crash, the caique approached West Imia again — this time unimpeded, the waters around it now empty of ships. The dispatch records the islet with the Greek flag gone and no military presence on it.
The three reports, as broadcast All three days' reports exactly as they went out on Antenna's evening news on 29, 30 and 31 January 1996 — the crisis as Greek viewers saw it while it was still unfolding.