Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Wednesday said that his country will not object to the undertaking of seabed surveys between Crete and Cyprus ahead of the construction of the planned Great Sea Interconnector, provided that it is provided with a written notification of the plans in advance.
“We do not raise any objections. We discussed it with [Greek] Prime Minister Mitsotakis and [French] President Macron. My president raised the issue in New York during his meeting with Prime Minister Mitsotakis,” he told Greek newspaper Ta Nea of the cable which, if completed, will link the energy grids of Cyprus, Greece and Israel.
He added that during those discussions, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had “described the project as remarkable” but had gone on to say that “I would prefer you to buy electricity from us rather than transporting it from a distance of 2,000 kilometres and spending over €2 billion of European funds”.
“I can provide from a distance of just 70 miles from mainland Turkey water, electricity, and natural gas, from which everyone, Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots, and the entire population, can benefit,” he said.
On the question of the waters which are disputed between Turkey and Greece, he said that “we have not yet touched on the issue” in high-level discussions between the leaderships of Turkey and Greece, but stressed that Turkey would not stand in the way of the interconnector if it is informed of work in advance.
“What we are asking is that when a ship conducts research at sea, it send us a written notification, not just an oral one, stating, ‘we are going to undertake specific actions in this area, here are the coordinates’. That is all we are asking for. Nothing more,” he said.
‘We do not want the status quo to be disturbed’
“We do not want the status quo to be disturbed, or a precedent to be created in a completely wrong way, which will cause even greater problems for both sides.”
It has been reported that the Greek and French governments intend to notify Turkey of their intentions prior to issuing a navtex, a message used to transmit information to seaborne vessels, regarding planned seabed surveys for the laying of cables.
On this front, Cypriot Energy Minister Michael Damianos had said last week that the navtex for the seabed surveys will be issued before the end of this month, with the Greek coastguard having said that French-flagged research ship the Abeille Marengo will be the ship conducting the surveys.
Damianos said on Monday that “if the project progresses”, it is believed that it will be fully completed by 2031.
Turkey plans to connect Cyprus’ water, gas, electrical infrastructure to its own
Fidan’s reference to the possibility of power being provided by Turkey comes with the Turkish and Turkish Cypriot authorities having drawn up plans to link the island’s energy grid with that of Turkey.
However, the European network of transmission system operators for electricity (Entso-E) has not included plans for a cable linking Turkey and Cyprus in its ten-year development plan, and said that the Great Sea Interconnector “is the only interconnector project connecting the Republic of Cyprus” in its plans.
Since then, Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot authorities have signed a memorandum of understanding for the construction of a natural gas pipeline between Cyprus and Turkey, though both the European Union and the Republic of Cyprus have rejected it.
On water, offers made by Turkey as early as 2015 to supply the whole island with water from the Taurus mountains have thus far been met with a cool response by successive Republic of Cyprus administrations, though the water is nonetheless pumped via an undersea pipeline to the Panagra reservoir in the island’s far northwest and used by Turkish Cypriots.