Michele Kambas
After a rapprochement is reached with Ankara, Israel hopes to export gas to Turkey across Cypriot waters. But Cyprus, that doesn't have diplomatic ties with Turkey, gives a red light.
REUTERS - Turkey needs to mend relations with Cyprus before the Cypriot government will allow a Turkish-Israel gas pipeline to cross its territory, a government spokesman said on Tuesday.
The remarks came a week after Israel and Turkey reached a rapprochement, ending a six-year diplomatic rupture and raising hopes that Israel can reach an agreement to export natural gas from its offshore Mediterranean fields to Turkey. But to reach Turkey a pipeline would have to traverse the territorial waters of Cyprus, which was split into [the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus] and a Turkish enclave by a Turkish invasion in 1974.
"Everyone understands that it's not possible for a state under occupation to approve a pipeline going to the occupying power," said Nicos Christodoulides, the Cypriot government spokesman.
No overtures have been made concerning such a pipeline. "There must be a solution to the Cyprus problem before that scenario is examined," Christodoulides said in Nicosia.
Cyprus and Turkey do not have diplomatic relations. But Greek Cypriots, who run the island's internationally recognized government, are engaged in reunification talks with the Turkish enclave in northern Cyprus.
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