With her country locked in a nasty tiff with Turkey over maritime gas
exploration rights, Cypriot Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis came to
Israel Wednesday looking for signs of support on the matter from Jerusalem, and
received it in the form of statement put out by the Prime Minister’s
Office.
The Prime Minister’s Office issued a statement following a
meeting between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Kozakou-Marcoullis saying
among the issues discussed was “expanding the possibilities of cooperating in
the energy field, since both countries have been blessed with natural gas
deposits in their exclusive economic zones.”
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Erdogan wants another apology, this time from Armenia Turkey has threatened Cyprus
against going ahead with plans to begin drilling for offshore gas deposits, with
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu threatening earlier this month that
Ankara would show the “necessary response” if Cyprus went ahead with the
plans.
Turkey, which has occupied northern Cyprus since 1974, claims
Cyprus does not have the right to exploit the island’s natural resources, and
that it cannot ignore the Turkish- Cypriot rights to the resources.
Both
the US and Russia have in recent days released statements supporting the Cypriot
position, and Kozakou-Marcoullis told
The Jerusalem Post in an interview, before
meeting Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres and Foreign Minister Avigdor
Lieberman, that she hoped for a “message going out from Israel regarding the
principle regarding sovereign rights in the exclusive economic
zone.”
Lieberman, like Netanyahu, also put out a statement signaling
support for Cyprus’s position, saying he and his Cypriot colleague praised the
agreement reached by Israel and Cyprus in 2010 delineating their maritime
boundaries and their respective exclusive economic zones, and saying that
beginning work to extract the gas should be done quickly “for the benefit of
both sides.”
In the
Post interview, Kozakou- Marcoullis said Cyprus was
planning exploratory drilling within the next two weeks, regardless of Turkey’s
threats.
“We have international law on our side,” she said. “I think
Turkey has to listen to the messages being sent by the international community
regarding this issue.”
She said while Cyprus has to be concerned about
“any kind of threats coming from Turkey, at the same time we are proceeding as
scheduled and doing whatever we have to do regarding raising the issue with
other countries.”
The Cypriot foreign minister, who has been in her job,
this time around, for only three weeks, having held the post previously for
almost a year in 2007-2008, downplayed speculation the dramatic upturn in
Israeli-Cypriot ties was linked to Israel’s deterioration of relations with
Ankara, saying the improvement had more to do with Cyprus’s entrance into the EU
in 2004, and Israel’s seeing Cyprus as a “gateway to the EU.”
Netanyahu
told Kozakou- Marcoullis the two countries were “two democracies with common
values and overlapping interests in the eastern Mediterranean.” He said the ties
between the two countries should be tightened “because we have to make up for
gaps that were created over decades.”
For years, Cyprus was considered
one of the most critical countries of Israel in
Europe.
Kozakou-Marcoullis told the
Post the strong current bilateral
ties between the two countries would remain even were Israel and Turkey to
repair their relationship.
“The fact that before you had a strong
relationship with Turkey, and now you don’t is not an element at all for us,”
she said.
Kozakou-Marcoullis would not get pinned down on how Cyprus
would vote in the UN in September on the Palestinian statehood recognition
issue, saying the EU’s position on this was still “under discussion.”
She
said the EU’s foreign ministers would “brainstorm” on the issue at an informal
meeting they will hold in Poland on September 2. The visiting foreign minister
said Cyprus was interested in seeing Israel and the PA return to
negotiations.
“The most important thing at the moment now is to resume
the talks,” she said, adding that at the moment she could not say whether the EU
would be able to reach a consensus on the matter.
Government sources said
the impression Netanyahu walked away with from the meeting was that Cyprus would
not support the Palestinian move.