Kombos to raise Turkish natural gas pipeline agreement at EU meeting

Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos will raise the issue of the agreement signed by Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot authorities which foresees the construction of a natural gas pipeline between Turkey and Cyprus at Monday’s meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Brussels, his ministry said on Sunday. The ministry said that Kombos will “denounce Turkey for its new illegal actions”, having already declared the agreement “illegal” within hours of it being signed on Friday. “The ‘memorandum’ in question, which was signed during the illegal visit of [Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz] to the occupied territories of the Republic of Cyprus, constitutes yet another manifestation of Turkey’s revisionist policy in the eastern Mediterranean,” it said at the time. It added that the agreement is “part of ongoing efforts to consolidate faits accomplis of the occupation and the further integration of the occupied areas with Turkey”. Related Articles • Turkey, Turkish Cypriots sign deal for natural gas pipeline • Gas pipeline from Turkey to north ‘to be operational in 2028’ • Turkey plans to construct natural gas pipeline to Cyprus The planned pipeline, it said, will be built “both on the territory and in the maritime zones of the Republic of Cyprus, without the permission of the Republic of Cyprus”. As such, it said, it “constitutes a violation of its sovereignty and sovereign rights”. “Turkey, as the occupying power, bears full responsibility for the activities taking place in the occupied areas of the Republic of Cyprus,” it said. Hours earlier, Yilmaz had said that “Turkey will continue to support the TRNC in achieving a strong infrastructure and a highly competitive and sustainable economic structure”. “This step taken in the energy sector will be a historic turning point in cooperation between the two countries,” he said. Meanwhile, Turkish Cypriot ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel had said that “the project is not for today, but for future generations”, and that “it is a demonstration of our will to leave a stronger, more sustainable, and more competitive country for our children”. On the political front, he said that the signing of Friday’s agreement “sent a strong message to the eastern Mediterranean”, “The Turkish Cypriot people are present in this region, have deep roots, and are building their future with their sovereign will. With the strong support of their motherland, Turkey, they will continue on their path. We know that where Turkey is, there is security, and where Turkey is, there is strength,” he said. Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar had explained the technical aspects of the pipeline, saying that t will stretch from the town of Anamur, which sits on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast in the Mersin province, to the Teknecik power station, located just outside Kyrenia. Anamur is located between the cities of Mersin and Alanya, with work currently underway to connect those two cities with a natural gas pipeline. At present, Mersin is supplied by natural gas flowing from Azerbaijan via Georgia, and from Turkmenistan via Iran. Bayraktar also said that the project would in fact consist of two parallel pipelines, each 22 inches (56 centimetres) in diameter, thus allowing the system to be “bidirectional”. The pipelines will stretch a total of 101 kilometres, of which 97km will be under the Levantine Sea. The European Council’s official programme for Monday’s meeting states that the foreign ministers of the bloc’s 27 member states and its foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas will discuss the ongoing Russian war in Ukraine, the situation in the Middle East, the Black Sea, and relations between the European Union and the United Nations. Monday’s discussion on the Black Sea may provide Kombos with the opportunity to raise the matter of the natural gas pipeline agreement, given that the issue of energy features heavily in the EU’s Black Sea strategy policy document, and given that Turkey itself is extracting natural gas from the Sakarya gas field in the Black Sea. Bayraktar had said in April on the matter of natural gas that “our focus is on increasing production in the Black Sea”, and had said in January that he aims to double production at the field, where 9.5 million cubic metres of natural gas were produced per day last year.