Turkey, in a letter to the UN Secretary General, attempts to associate the delimitation of the median line in the Aegean between Greece and Turkey with the delimitation of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of the Republic of Cyprus.
The letter came in response to a letter by Cyprus` Permanent Representative Nicos Emiliou regarding Turkish provocations, in which he had expressed the government`s “grave concern” over Turkey`s claims questioning the sovereign rights of the Republic of Cyprus to its exclusive economic zone and its exploration and exploitation of natural reserves.
In his letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, which circulated as an official document of the General Assembly and the Security Council in April, Emiliou, noted that Turkey’s fulfillment of all its obligations arising from the UN Charter and international law is the only mutually beneficial path ahead.
Turkey, whose troops occupy Cyprus’ northern part since they invaded in 1974, does not recognise the Republic of Cyprus and refuses to normalise relations with Nicosia, in spite of repeated calls by the EU, which it aspires to join. Turkey has not signed the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Turkey`s Representative Y. Halit Çevik said in his letter that “as the country with the longest continental coastline in the eastern Mediterranean, Turkey has registered with the United Nations that it has ipso facto and ab initio legal and sovereign rights in the maritime areas of the eastern Mediterranean that are west of meridian 32°16`18″E”.
The Turkish Representative also said that “it is Turkey’s well-considered position that the outer limits of the Turkish continental shelf in the above-mentioned maritime areas follow the median line between the Turkish and Egyptian coastlines”. The western terminal point of the median line, he added, “will be determined in accordance with the outcome of future delimitation agreements in the Aegean Sea and in the Mediterranean among all States concerned, taking into account all relevant and special circumstances”.
Cevik recalls that Turkey raised her objections to and her non-recognition of the agreement between the “Greek Cypriot Administration”, as he describes the government of the Republic of Cyprus, and the Arab Republic of Egypt on the “delimitation of the exclusive economic zone” of 17 February 2003.
He claimed that “several of the so-called hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation licence areas declared by the Greek Cypriots partly remain within Turkey’s continental shelf” and drew the UNSG`s attention “to the fact that, in the latest round of the “international tender” mentioned in the aforementioned letter, one of the tendered areas lies directly on the Turkish continental shelf”.
Concluding, Cevik said “Turkey refutes all the allegations contained in the letter of the Greek Cypriot representative”.
