Turkey to UN: Cyprus Has No Right to Its Own Gas
Turkey has sent a formal protest letter to the United Nations claiming that Cyprus' natural gas agreement with Egypt, signed in March, violates the rights of Turkish Cypriots.
The letter states that Cyprus and its hydrocarbon reserves are "common property of the Turkish Cypriot people," a framing that effectively denies the Republic of Cyprus the authority to manage its own natural resources. Turkey argues that Turkish Cypriots hold "equal rights" over those resources and must give their consent before any gas export cooperation can proceed.
The protest letter goes further, warning that any country cooperating exclusively with the Greek Cypriot side on potential gas exports, without the consent of Turkish Cypriots, is violating what Turkey calls their "lawful and inalienable rights." The Cyprus-Egypt agreement, reached earlier this year, covers natural gas cooperation in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Turkey has long contested Cyprus' right to explore and exploit energy reserves in its own Exclusive Economic Zone, and has in the past sent drilling vessels and naval escorts into Cypriot waters to assert those claims. Ankara does not recognize the Republic of Cyprus as the legitimate government of the entire island.
The UN letter is Turkey's latest attempt to use international bodies to legitimize its position on Cyprus' offshore energy fields, which have attracted major Western energy companies and multiple bilateral agreements with neighboring states including Greece, Israel, Italy, and now Egypt.
