The Anatolian Plate, together with the Aegean-Peloponnesus block, is located near the centre of a very wide region, including the Arabian Plate with the adjacent Zagros Mountains and central Iran, that moves in a circulatory pattern at a relatively fast rate of 20 mm/yr. The rate of this counter-clockwise motion increases near the Hellenic Trench system south of Turkey and decreases away from it (i.e. the Eurasian and African plates move at a rate of 5 mm/yr), resulting in internal deformations in several areas, including central and eastern Anatolia, south-western Aegean-Peloponnesus, Lesser Caucasus, and central Iran.