Turkey frustrating Cyprus’ plan to join IEA

TURKEY is blocking Cyprus’ efforts to join the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an essential pre-requisite for the state’s planned accession to the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), the Middle East Economic Survey (MEES) reported yesterday.

Asked about Cyprus’ commitment to establishing strategic oil stocks to provide 90 days of forward cover in line with EU requirements from 2008, Acting Director of the Energy Service of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism in Nicosia, Solon Kassinis told MEES that Cyprus wanted to join the IEA – which also requires members to hold such strategic stocks – but that Turkey was putting up technical objections to Cyprus’ entry to the OECD as it has with other international bodies – thereby preventing moves by Nicosia to join the IEA.

“We are ready and willing to join. It is not fair for an island state not to be a member and yet to have to fulfill the strategic stock obligations,” Kassinis said. “I believe joining the IEA is a necessity and this should be backed by the EU as a must. Turkey should not create obstacles for an EU member state to become a member of the IEA,” he said.

Kassinis said the government was studying the impact of high energy prices on the country’s economy and conceded that these had had an impact on growth.

“We are trying to save energy by giving incentives to save energy, switching to alternative fuels and promoting renewables,” he said.

“We are watching very closely what is happening and seeing when to buy our strategic (oil) reserves,” he added. Kassinis said the government was raising a levy through power bills that was being used for energy saving projects and alternative fuels such as biofuel, biogas and wind. The government was also working on a petroleum law and other oil and gas regulations that would enable exploration work in the Cyprus offshore area. “For the time being we are harmonising our legislation,” he said, and suggested that a bid round for the country’s offshore areas was not an immediate priority for the government.

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.