Turkish Cypriots insist resources must be shared
Following repeated threats by Turkey to begin explorations for hydrocarbons in Cyprus’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), a spokesman for the illegal Turkish-Cypriot entity in northern Cyprus upped the ante with Nicosia further on Monday, saying that the island’s natural resources must be shared between the Greek- and Turkish-Cypriot communities.
In a statement on Monday, he described Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades as the “president of the Greek administration of southern Cyprus” and accused him of ignoring Turkish-Cypriot rights to the island’s natural gas resources.
Meanwhile, Meral Aksener, an ex-Turkish interior minister and prominent nationalist who last year founded her own Iyi (Good) Party, after breaking with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), appears to have called for an invasion of several Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, claiming that they belong to Turkey.
“The Greeks invaded the islands known to belong to Turkey. Those are invaded homelands. What is required must be done,” Aksener said in a tweet over the weekend that was reposted together with an English translation by Turkish journalist Uzay Bulut.
