N Cyprus prepares its own drilling plan

Turkey and northern Cyprus are planning to sign an agreement to draw an exclusive economic zone in the Mediterranean Sea and invite foreign companies for gas and oil exploration, in retaliation to Greek Cyprus’ scheduled drillings set for October.

“Turkish Cypriots will sign their own agreements and start their own offshore exploration activities, if the Greek Cypriot side fails to suspend its activities to explore and extract oil and natural gas off the southern shores of Cyprus,” Kudret Özersay, Turkish Cypriot leader Derviş Eroğlu’s special representative, told the Hürriyet Daily News on Friday.

Before a unification deal with Turkish Cyprus is brokered, Greek Cypriot ambition to benefit from potentially rich gas and oil reserves in the Mediterranean Sea has once again increased regional tension. The announcement that a U.S. firm, Noble Energy, would begin drilling for natural gas off southern Cyprus’ coast on Oct.1 has drawn Ankara’s reaction both against Greek Cyprus and countries whose companies have been involved in the process.

Turkey urged the United States to convince interested U.S. companies to stay away from these kinds of activities if they do not want to push the region into turmoil. It also said such moves would seriously hurt ongoing reunification talks between the two sides of the divided island.

“We will act in the context of the principle of reciprocity,” Özersay said. Even if countries are divided, they could get all the benefits of a former partnership, he said, implying that if reunification talks fail and the island becomes divided into two states, the Greek Cypriots’ benefits from the island’s natural resources must be shared.

“If Greek Cypriots do not suspend the natural gas drilling and receive its benefits in the future, Turkish Cypriots would obtain their share on the island’s natural sources,” he said. A unilateral act of the Greek Cypriot side did not mean that the island’s natural resources belong solely to them.

Another official from the Turkish Cypriot administration, who wanted to remain anonymous, clarified their future plan for action if the Greek Cypriots insist on drilling for natural gas.

“We can sign an agreement with Turkey for delimitation of the exclusive economic zone, so the ships of TPAO (Turkish Petroleum Company) can explore off the southern and western part of the island,” the official said.

“In the past, foreign companies asked us about gas and oil exploration. We can also invite them and provide a license for them to perform explorations around the island,” he added.

Since the early 2000s, Greek Cyprus has signed a number of agreements with littoral countries of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea to draw economic zones, with each of them being able to benefit from gas and oil reserves. Turkey made counter-attacks against the move, urging all Eastern Mediterranean countries suspend these deals with Greek Cyprus.