Cyprus-Forum.com

[bill cobbett]

... and this to complete the set of three survey ships that Turkey has falsely claimed to have sent in to CY waters is the track of the Bergen Surveyor from around 20 hours ago.

Again it's outside CY waters, but may have got in to the unclaimed Greece EEZ. Have marked the all important greek island of Kastelorizo with a red arrow.

[bill cobbett]

Can also lastly say tonight on this matter of prospecting.

The Law of the Sea doesn't only give CY exclusive rights to the natural resources in its EEZ it also includes rights to issue licences and permissions for prospecting and seismic surveys.

After all these seismic surveys are very valuable, they are sold by seismic survey outfits for millions of dollars to drilling firms (like Noble) and the Republic has every right to insist on granting permissions/licences to carry out these surveys and possibly even charging for the permission to survey or coming to other arrangements for its advantage.

[bill cobbett]

Curiously all four of the ships involved in the Turkish grab for for any possible CY gas have vanished from the radar.

Marinetraffic.com is showing no itinerary record for them for today and has been reporting "out of range" for all four for the past 24 hours, which given the eastern Med is pretty well covered by the AIS system... is very curious.

Wonder whether we're seeing the quiet abandonment of Turkey's surveying provocation??? Next day or two will tell.