Energy and the new Cyprus problem
Monday, February 11, 2008
Özay MEHMET
Gerhard Schroeder's visit to the Turkish Republic of northern Cyprus early
in February 2008 signals the strategic fact that a new Cyprus problem is
emerging. The old Turkish-Greek conflict on the island is being replaced by
an energy-centered problem.
Northern Cyprus is now a strategic territory, dominating a new Turkish
energy corridor, the new supply route of oil, and soon natural gas, to
Europe. For a long time, the Europeans believed that they could control this
region via Greek Cypriots. Make Limassol the trading hub of eastern
Mediterranean and push Ankara into opening its ports to international
shipping carrying the Greek Cyprus-controlled "Flag of Convenience."
Ankara has called this bluff, not only in the diplomatic front, but, more
significantly on the ground in real economic terms. The port of Iskenderun
is now the leading oil exporting terminal in the region. Turkish government
plans to turn Iskenderun into the Rotterdam of eastern Mediterranean.
The world, including Schroeder's new Russian friends, is watching. They
can see ahead.
Limassol is declining as a regional center of shipping. International
shipping companies are leaving this port city for more profitable locations
in Singapore and elsewhere, giving up the hope that Ankara will dance to the
European Union's music.
Turkish shipping interests centered in Istanbul expect to cash in on the
estimated $1.5 billion worth shipping and transit services linked to the
Iskenderun terminal. Ankara is obliged to listen to this important
constituency. It will resist opening its ports, as demanded by the EU to
Greek Cypriot (i.e. international FOC) shipping, unless and until its own EU
membership aspirations are fully met and the EU effectively delivers its
promises to the Turkish Cypriots. If EU does not listen to the increasingly
disillusioned Turkish Cypriots, it should now listen to Schroeder. He
traveled to northern Cyprus to declare that the EU should stop punishing TCs
and keep its promise for lifting the Greek Cypriot embargoes on them.
A new problem: All about energy
The Turkish Cypriots, in the meantime, are sitting pretty tight, realizing
slowly the new geopolitics being played in their backyard. What is not fully
realized yet is that the Old Cyprus Problem is dead, having died with the
Annan Plan.
A New Cyprus Problem is on the agenda. It is all about energy, and the
control of energy corridor. The new energy problem, centered on Cyprus, has
two dimensions. One if the potential of oil reserves in the territorial
waters around the island. The other is the control of sea lanes in waters to
the north of northern Cyprus and south of Anatolian coastline, the Turkish
Energy Corridor (TEC).
The oil potential in territorial waters of the island is in disputed
waters. The Greek Cypriot authorities have already signed agreements over
exploration rights with Egypt and Lebanon, but Turkey, the dominant power in
the area, has claimed some of these as its own territorial water. It is
unlikely anything will come out of this potential, even if significant oil
reserves were to be discovered.
More important is the TEC. Increasingly, other high-ranking European and
international diplomats will follow in the footsteps of Gerhard Schroeder
courting northern Cyprus government. Why? By geography, the TEC is similar
to the Straits of Hormuz. Nobody would like to see it in unfriendly hands,
least of all the Europeans and the Americans. Turks, unlike Iranians, are
pro-West, even though to date they have been unfairly treated.
Not too much longer, though.
The political implications of TEC are immense. With a divided island, now
looking permanently partitioned on account of the impending re-election for
a second term of the inflexible Greek Cypriot President Papadopoulos,
neither the EU nor the United States nor the world at large, can afford to
sit and watch the unresolved Cyprus problem descend into yet another zone of
hot conflict in a chaos-ridden world, hungry for oil.
Gradually but surely, therefore, the coming years will witness a Two-State
solution in Cyprus, first by the lifting of political and economic embargoes
on northern Cyprus in the international arena, followed by statehood,
similar to what is happening in Kosovo.
* Özay Mehmet, Ph.D, is professor emeritus with the Carleton University,
Ottawa, Canada and professor of economics with the Eastern Mediterranean
University, northern Cyprus. He can be reached at
[email protected]
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