THE TURKISH Cypriot side will launch its own offshore exploration if Cyprus does not suspend its drilling date, Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu’s Special Representative Kudret Ozersay said yesterday.
He said the only reason they had been holding off until now was for the sake of the Cyprus negotiations “because such options could make it harder to reach a solution to the Cyprus problem”.
“The Cyprus Turkish side will sign its own international agreements for oil and gas exploration should the Greek Cypriot administration not suspend its exploration and drilling activities,” said Ozersay.
“No doubt, this will lead dispute as to where the maritime boundaries of these two states which do not recognise each other begin or end. We are not talking about an ordinary geography here.”
Ozersay said the political will of the Turkish Cypriots was just as necessary as the political will of the Greek Cypriots for a Cyprus solution and essential if a lasting “new state of affairs” was to be created.
“Just as the political will of the Turkish Cypriots had been completely ignored through agreements signed on exclusive economic zones with third countries, such moves served to place the future of the island under Greek Cypriot domination,” said Ozersay.
“On the one hand, we are conducting negotiations for determining a common future, and, on the other, the Greek Cypriot Side is trying to determine this future exclusively by itself,” he added.
“If the Greek Cypriot Side tells us ‘look you have declared the TRNC and you have no right here’ and ‘ the TRNC exists’, then it should openly say so, so that we know whether it accepts us or not.”
He said even if the ‘TRNC’ was were recognised as a separate and independent state by the Greek Cypriot side, “it is a reality that we have not yet settled our accounts with the Greek Cypriot side”
He said a possible “settling of accounts” with the Greek Cypriot Side would not only include issues related to the partnership in the past, international treaties, debts or archives but would also require an account of how similar wealth could be shared.
“The reason we are not talking about this today is our commitment towards creating a new partnership,” said Ozersay.
He said to start drilling at such a critical stage of the Cyprus talks was a provocation and deliberate act to create tensions. “It’s not a coincidence,” he added.
