By OGJ editors
Prospects improved for construction of a natural gas pipeline between East Mediterranean fields and Turkey Apr. 11 when negotiations over the reunification of Cyprus resumed after a 54-day break.
Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader (Note: of Cyprus' largely secular Turkish Cypriot minority) Mustafa Akinci scheduled four meetings during the next month and a half but set no deadline for an agreement.
Nearly 2 years of talks mediated by the United Nations seemed headed for settlement in January when representatives of the island-nation’s guarantors—Turkey, Greece, and the UK—joined the negotiations. [Note: We said at the time that these talks would lead nowhere because of Turkey's unwillingness to withdraw its troops and overall desire to meddle in Cypriot affairs. The new talks will fail too for the same reasons. It's offensive to common sense for the west to impose sanctions against Russia for Crimea while allowing Turkey's far more severe, multiple, on-going war crimes in Cyprus go unpunsihed for decades on end, while attempting to build a solution on a bizonal basis, a product of the illegal invasion the international community itself has been condemning since, verbally in any case. Then again Turkey is an ally. Sort of].
But Akinci withdrew in February, citing a legislative decision that he said moved the Greek Cypriot position away from shared governance. [Note: A fake, artificial pretext. Like the one Turkey manufactured to invade Cyprus in the first place. Akinci is Turkey's strawman and he was ordered to buy time until after the Turkish referendum of April 16th. The timings of the interruption and resumtpion of the talks is all the proof an objective observer needs].
Cyprus has been divided since 1974 between the Turkish north and Greek south. [Note: Not merely divided. Cyprus is not like Germany. In 1974, Turkey planned and invaded the northern part of Cyprus, cleansed it of its historic majority Christian population, created the so-called "green line" dividing the illegally occupied northern Muslim enclave from the Republic, and has since been colonising it with its own citizens in an apparent attempt to modify the ethnic/cultural make-up of Cyprus, a non-stop Christian island since 57 AD when St Paul passed through on his way to Rome and Christianising it in the process.]
The government of Turkey has made an end to the Cypriot impasse a condition for addressing a territorial dispute stymying a pipeline to carry gas to Turkey from undeveloped deepwater fields, including Leviathan off Israel and Aphrodite off Cyprus.
Meanwhile, an ambitious alternative project received a boost earlier this month when energy ministers of Italy, Greece, Cyprus, and Israel signed a declaration of support for the proposed Eastern Mediterranean (EastMed) pipeline. They met in Tel Aviv with European Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete.
The 1,900-km EastMed pipeline would link the four countries and have initial capacity of 10 billion cu m/year of gas. Offshore segments would total 1,300 km.
According to IGI Poseidon SA, Athens, a 50-50 venture of DEPA SA of Greece and Edison SPA of Italy, studies confirm that the project is technically feasible, economically viable, and complementary to other export options.
IGI Poseidon is doing preliminary work on the EastMed project with financial help from the European Union's Connecting Europe Facility.
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