US: Cyprus gas resources ‘should be shared fairly’

Spokesman speaks after Italian firm makes ‘significant’ find

THE potential offshore gas and oil resources of Cyprus should be shared fairly between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots, a spokesman for the US State Department said on Thursday after Italian energy giant Eni announced a “significant gas discovery” to the south-west of the island.

Eni announced on Monday that it had found an estimated 2.5 trillion cubic feet of gas in the “Cronos-1” well drilled in “Block 6” of the Greek Cypriot side’s self-declared “exclusive economic zone”, 160km off the Cyprus coastline, in 2,287 metres of water depth. The block is operated by Eni, with French energy firm TotalEnergies as its partner.

Eni said that the gas discovery of Cronos-1 can “unlock additional potential in the area and is part of Eni’s successful effort to provide further gas supply to Europe”.

Asked by a Greek Cypriot journalist to comment on the development on Thursday, a spokesman for the US State Department in Washington DC said: “The US policy for the exclusive economic zone of the Republic

of Cyprus is long-term and has not changed.

He added that “we believe that Cyprus’s oil and gas resources, like all its resources, should be shared fairly between the two communities”.

There was no initial reaction to Eni’s announcement from Turkey or the TRNC, namely because the new gas discovery is not in waters contested by either country.

However Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, when asked about Eni’s announcement during an interview with broadcaster Haber Global this week, said that the area in question does not overlap with Turkey’s continental shelf and was located south of its continental shelf border.

Mr Çavuşoğlu noted that Greece and the Greek Cypriots have attempted to send vessels to the Turkish continental shelf “nine times in the last year” and added that “we definitely did not allow these vessels to enter our continental shelf, either with the military measures we took or our diplomatic initiatives”.

He noted that an Italian scientific research ship requested permission from Turkey to conduct research in the region, and said that Turkey will continue its drilling and seismic research activities within its continental shelf and in areas licenced by the TRNC.

In February 2018 Turkish warships prevented a drillship contracted by Eni from operating in an area to the south-east of Cyprus designated as “Block 3” by the Greek Cypriot side but which forms part of the zone claimed by the TRNC.

At the time Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan warned the Greek Cypriot administration not to “overstep the mark”.