8 AEGEAN SEA (JUDGMENT) Government. Furthermore, in the present case the duty of the Court to make this examination on its own initiative is reinforced by the terms of Article 53 of the Statute of the Court. According to this provision, whenever one of the parties does not appear before the Court, or fails to defend its case, the Court, before finding upon the merits, must satisfy itself that it has jurisdiction. Before proceeding further, however, the evolution of the main events leading to the bringing of this dispute before the Court must be outlined. 16. Towards the end of 1973 the Turkish Government granted licences to carry out exploration for petroleum in submarine areas of the Aegean Sea, including areas which encroached upon the continental shelf which, according to the Greek Government, appertains to certain Greek islands. By a Note Verbale of 7 February 1974, the Greek Government, basing itself on international law as codified by Articles 1 (b) and 2 of the 1958 Geneva Convention on the Continental Shelf, questioned the validity of the licences granted by Turkey, reserved its sovereign rights over the continental shelf adjacent to the coasts of the said islands, and contended that the continental shelf required to be delimited between the two States on a basis of equidistance by means of a median line. The Turkish Government replied, by a Note Verbale of 27 February 1974, that "the Greek Islands situated very close to the Turkish Coast do not possess a [continental] shelf of their own", and disputed the applicability of the principle of equidistance; while reserving its rights, it stated that it considered it appropriate to seek by means of agreement a solution in conformity with the rules of international law. In its reply of 24 May 1974, the Greek Government indicated that it was not opposed to a delimitation based on the provisions of present day positive international law, "as codified by the 1958 Geneva Convention on the Continental Shelf"; the Turkish Government in its turn, on 5 June 1974, stated that it was the duty of the two Governments to use every endeavour to bring about agreed solutions of the various problems arising by reason of the fact that they were neighbours in the Aegean Sea; it expressed readiness to enter into negotiations for the delimitation of the continental shelf between the two countries. 17. On 29 May 1974 the Turkish vesse1 Candarli began a programme of exploration in waters which were wholly or partly superjacent to the continental shelf in the Aegean Sea which, according to the Greek Government, appertains to Greece. The Greek Government, in a Note of 14 June 1974, observed that this exploration was a breach of Greece's exclusive sovereign rights and lodged a vigorous protest. The Turkish Government, in its reply of 4 July 1974, refused to accept the Greek protest. Another protest in respect of further licences for exploration was made by Greece