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Turkey’s latest naval ‘maneuvers’ just off the southeastern coast and within the offshore license zone operated by ENI was not the first time that Cyprus reached a standoff with Ankara. Apart from the well-known historical events of the past six decades, leading up to the invasion and continued occupation since 1974, Cyprus lived through a similar crisis during the Clerides administration when it tried, unsuccessfully, to import the Russian-made S300 air defence missiles.
This has proven, once again, that first, Cyprus needs to clarify who its genuine friends and allies are, and later embark on a new campaign and initiate a fresh set of confidence building measures with the aim of convincing the Turkish Cypriots that future revenues will be shared and distributed to the entire population, primarily through a post-solution federal, central government.
The carrot-and-stick approach has obviously failed as Turkey has much bigger guns in its political and military arsenal. Clearly, it continues to manipulate the West’s and Russia’s needs in the Middle East, primarily in Syria, playing the role of the peacemaker and host to millions of refugees, with western governments not realising that the present-day Turkey is the cause of the problem, not its solution.
As Cyprus can evidently no longer go ahead with its ambitious future energy strategy, there must be a policy change, one that will help speed up and encourage the Turkish Cypriots (and Turkey proper) to return to the peace talks.
Had the natgas finds been unique to Cyprus, then clearly the government would have had the upper hand when trying to convince our European partners and newfound friends in Israel, the US and Russia. But as the neighbouring gasfields are richer than what is available in the Cyprus EEZ, then we should move to a Plan B, which would suggest establishing powerful alliances with neighbours Egypt, Israel and even Lebanon, that could gradually diminish Turkey’s influence. But this will take time.
In the meantime, it is in Cyprus’ interests to explore commercial partnerships with countries in our immediate vicinity, while clearly ‘old friends’ such as Russia continue to maintain a multi-faceted policy when it comes to Cyprus, Turkey and the eastern Mediterranean.
Having let bygones be bygones, and seeing Israel’s hesitation to proceed with closer co-operation with Cyprus, that leaves us with few choices, chief among them being Egypt and Lebanon, historic friends dating back to the 1950s and 1960s, but never seen as anything close to allies. It is time this policy changes.
