Cyprus Says Peace at Risk by Turkish Gas Threats
Cyprus said on Monday that U.N.-led peace talks could be wrecked if Turkey persists in trying to hamper the divided island's energy search.
Nicosia is unhappy that Ankara is determined to search for oil and gas in the same region where the government has already licensed exploratory drills in its exclusive economic zone.
"For the talks to produce results they cannot be conducted under such types of provocation," said Cyprus Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides.
"The government is treating this development as very serious, perhaps it's the most serious since demarcation of the exclusive economic zone," he added.
He said it would be up to Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades to decide on what to do next and he is meeting party political leaders on Tuesday to discuss the issue and its bearing on reunification talks.
Greek- and Turkish-Cypriot leaders relaunched peace talks in February after a nearly two-year hiatus, but progress has been sluggish.
Italian-Korean energy consortium ENI-Kogas began last month deep sea drilling offshore Cyprus for possible gas riches.
Government officials say Ankara has issued a notice that a Turkish seismic vessel will be carrying out a survey from mid-October in the same area where ENI-Kogas is operating.
Turkey, which has occupied the northern third of Cyprus since 1974, opposes the exploitation of offshore hydrocarbon reserves by the Greek-Cypriot government in the south before there is any peace deal.
It argues that Turkish Cypriots should be allowed a share in the wealth of natural riches.
"We have repeatedly said that the natural wealth of Cyprus and especially hydrocarbons belong to all Cypriots, and all will benefit in the event of a solution, but this is being undermined," said Kasoulides.
U.S. firm Noble Energy made the first find off Cyprus's southeast coast in 2011 in the Aphrodite field, which is estimated to contain between 3.6 trillion and 6 trillion cubic feet of gas.
Cyprus has ambitions of becoming a regional gas hub for its own, as well as Israeli and even Lebanese exports, and plans on building a liquefied natural gas factory at Vassiliko, near the southern coastal port city of Limassol, to export gas to Asia and Europe.
The government has commissioned Noble, with its Israeli partners Delek and Avner, as well as France's Total, to carry out feasibility studies for a plant.
Total, which is also looking for oil, will exploit blocks 10 and 11 from 2015.
Cyprus is hoping to export its gas, and maybe oil, by 2022.
Source: Agence France Presse
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