After the Mudros armistice the Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos, heading the Greek diplomatic delegation, attempted to promote Greek interests in Paris, where the Peace Conference was taking place.

The first official declaration of Greek claims was the Memorandum of the Greek national claims drafted in December 1918 and submitted to the Supreme Council of the Allied Powers in January 1919.

Venizelos was asking for the annexation to Greece of northern Epirus, Thrace, the Dodecanese islands and a zone in Asia Minor. This zone extended over a line running from a point opposite Tenedos Island to the north to a point opposite Kastelorizo to the south, whereas the port of Panormos secured the exit to the sea of Marmara. Constantinople and the Straits would form an international state.

The arguments of Venizelos were grounded on the numerical supremacy of Greeks in the contested areas. In Asia Minor there was a population of 818,221 Greeks, whereas 11,877 more were living in the islands Imvros and Tenedos, figures gathered by the Patriarchate in 1912. For Greeks outside the contested area, Venizelos proposed that they be exchanged with Muslims from the zone that would be ceded to Greece.