Turkey: We will send oil exploration rig to claim our rights off Cyprus

Turkey is ready to send an exploration rig, accompanied by a warship, to claim its rights off Cyprus, a Turkish official says

The Greek Cypriot initiative for gas drilling off Cyprus pushes Turkey and Turkish Cyprus to announce their own action plan in retaliation.Tension between Turkey and Greek Cyprus is moving toward crisis in the eastern Mediterranean Sea with Ankara’s announcement of plans to send an oil and gas exploration rig to the already unstable area, accompanied by a warship. “We have accomplished all preparatory work. We are ready to finalize the agreement [with Turkish Cyprus] to begin the process and send our platform off the Cyprus coast,” a Foreign Ministry official told the Hürriyet Daily News on Sunday.

The statement followed news that Texas-based Noble Energy, operating under license from the Greek Cypriot government, had moved its drilling rig into position over the weekend. It is expected to start work soon on a block southeast of the island.

The Greek Cypriot initiative pushed Turkey and Turkish Cyprus to announce their own action plan in retaliation. Under the plan, the Turkish Petroleum Corporation, or TPAO, will be licensed by Turkish Cyprus to launch exploration and drilling activities in the disputed area. A senior Energy Ministry official was in Nicosia on Sunday to review the current state of agreement, which will likely be signed within days if the Greek Cypriot administration does not retreat from its position.

“We will be very cautious in this process; all our steps will be taken as retaliation and [in response] to Greek Cypriot moves,” the Foreign Ministry official said. Noting that Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu will meet with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York this week, the diplomat said Turkey will try all diplomatic channels to avert this crisis. “If we cannot succeed, there will be no room left for us other than to retaliate,” the official said. The Greek Cypriot drilling plan will also kill off the U.N.’s plan to reunify the divided island, Davutoğlu said Sunday. “The Greek Cypriots are intending to sabotage the talks, to change the nature of existing ties by the way of provocation,” he said, warning that such unilateral actions would doom the island to permanent division. “If they claim they have their own area where they can do whatever they want, then, by implication, they accept that the [Northern Cyprus] has its own area as well. This is a shift to a two-state mentality.”

If the Greek Cypriots begin drilling, Davutoğlu added, Turkey and northern Cyprus will respond by signing a continental shelf delimitation accord to pave the way for their own exploration and “the two-state prospect will further deepen.”

Davutoğlu said he discussed the latest tensions with the U.N. envoy in Cyprus, Alexander Downer, and was planning to hold further talks with Ban in New York this week. Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Beşir Atalay meanwhile said late Saturday that Turkey will freeze its relations with the European Union if Cyprus takes over the union’s rotating presidency next year before a solution is reached on the divided island. “If the negotiations [on Cyprus] do not end positively and the EU hands over the presidency to southern Cyprus, the main crisis will be between the EU and Turkey. Because then we will freeze our relations with the EU,” the Anatolia news agency quoted him as saying

September 18, 2011
SOURCE: Hürriyet Daily News