Turkish newspaper Sabah published an article on the recent developments between Cyprus and Turkey in relation to hydrocarbons criticizing the reaction of Cyprus regarding Turkey’s violation of Cyprus’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
The writer of the article, Tulu Gümüştekin, blames Greek Cypriots for the whole situation by saying “Greek Cyprus has done it again. They are determined to stop the negotiations over the future status of the island. The main objectives of the Greek Cypriot authorities, since 1960, have been to ethnically cleanse the island and become incorporated with mainland Greece,”.
The article reiterates Davutoglu and Turkey’s claims that in 1974, a coup d’état was staged by the military regime in power in Athens in order to overthrow Archbishop Makarios and Turkey was forced to intervene and invade the island leading to island’s division.
“Since then, there have been an incredible number of negotiations. All under the auspices of the U.N. and all have failed. The division has created two very different communities, with different languages and different ways of living. The consistent policy of the Greek Cypriot authorities has been to “internationalize” the problem of division, whereas Turkey’s attitude has been to leave the solution to both communities on the island” the article states.
The writer continues the provocative article by saying that “Greek Cyprus officially entered Turkey-EU relations in 1992 and has been poisoning Turkey’s external relations ever since ” stressing that the plan proposed by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan was rejected by the Greek community, whereas Turkish community welcomed it.
Moreover, the article criticizes the membership of Cyprus in the EU by saying that “Greek Cyprus has been made a member of the EU, thanks to the Greeks threatening to veto any enlargement plans until Cyprus was made a member” adding that “Cyprus became a problematic island, which functions basically as a financial and maritime base for the Russian Federation in the Mediterranean. Therefore, Greek Cyprus lost what little motivation it had to reunify the island”.
The writer underlines that following Cyprus’ bankruptcy the issue of new reserves of natural gas came up and no one knows how much gas there is there.
“They have broken the gentlemen’s agreement to refrain from exploring the sea before the end of the reunification negotiations” says the article concluding that what is more dangerously is the military manoeuvres that are being organized together with the Russian, Israeli and Greek Cypriot fleets to send a message to Turkey, which does not seem overly anxious”.
