‘Cyprus and Turkey must find harmony over airspace’

INTERNATIONAL aviation authorities are trying hard to resolve the issue of lack of co-ordination between control towers in Nicosia and Ankara, which creates flight safety concerns, officials said yesterday.

The problem stems from Turkey’s refusal to recognise Cyprus and its insistence for flying aircraft in Cypriot airspace to communicate with the breakaway state.

“Both Eurocontrol and ICAO and the European Commission are continuously mentioning this safety related deficiency to Turkey and we are doing our best to persuade them that we should find a melody that we can all dance to,” said ICAO’s Thiel Karsten.

Karsten said it “takes two to tango” and until now there has been no agreement between the two to dance to the same tune.

Eurocontrol director-general David McMillan said his organisation was working very hard to try and find solutions, which were acceptable to all the parties concerned “so as to deliver the safest possible airspace in this region.”

“That’s what we’re trying to do and I think it’s important that you understand that efforts are underway to try and find a solution … which I would like to find sooner rather than later,” McMillan told reporters.

He said there were ways within the limits of international law that could help resolve the issue.

Transport Minister Nicos Nicolaides stressed that any communication between Nicosia and Ankara could not go through the breakaway state in the north.

It should either be direct or through Eurocontrol or any other facilitators, Nicolaides said.

“We are ready to proceed with technical arrangements of the problem of lack of communication,” Nicolaides said

He criticised Turkey for trying to upgrade the breakaway state through this procedure.

Turkey insists that all communication goes through the breakaway state.

“The issue is one of communication in the area so that everybody knows what instructions have been given to aircraft and aircraft know which instructions to follow,” McMillan said.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.