Cyprus lodged an official protest recently at the U.N. against provocative Turkish actions in its Exclusive Economic Zone which were conducted last October.
The formal complaint was made in a December 12, 2018 letter to U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres which was distributed on December 31 as an official document of the United Nations General Assembly.
In the letter, Cyprus’ Permanent Representative to the U.N. Kornelios Korneliou described the illegal activities of the Turkish research vessel Barbaros.
”On October 18, 2018, the Turkish state-owned survey vessel Barbaros Hayreddin Paşa and supporting vessels, accompanied and supported by Turkish warships, commenced seismic surveys in the southwest areas of the continental shelf/EEZ of Cyprus,” the letter reads. Korneliou also stated that the incursion included “parts of hydrocarbon exploration blocks 4 and 5.”
”The area has purportedly been reserved for seismic surveys by Turkey, via an unauthorized navigational warning dated October 16, for the period from October 18, 2018 to February 1, 2019,” Korneliou noted.
These surveys, he declared, ”constitute a violation by Turkey of the sovereign rights of Cyprus under international law and, in particular, the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the relevant provisions of which have long been crystallized into customary international law.”
Kornelios Korneliou is Cyprus’ Permanent Representative to the UN. He was the permanent Representative of the Republic of Cyprus to the European Union from 2011 until 2017. Prior to that, he was Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Cyprus to France.
With information from C.N.A.
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