Turks threatening to send warships to Cyprus

The direct threat that Turkey will use all means to stop the Cypriot Republic from searching to detect natural gas resources, was uttered today by Turkish vice president and the person responsible for European Affairs, Mr. Egemen Bagis.

Approximately one month before the scheduled search start by the American company Noble Energy in Cyprus’ exclusive economic zone, Mr. Bagis reiterated his claim that it is illegal for Cyprus to do anything concerning researching potential drilling sites in waters that do not belong to the country.

Speaking to the Turkish newspaper “Zaman”, the vice president directly referred to the S-300 Russian missile crisis. Turkey had threatened that if the Russian anti-missile system was installed in Cyprus, “Turkey would react without a limit” and finally managed to transfer the S-300 counter-missile system to Crete.

Today, though, things are different. The US and Russia have publicly stood in favour of the Cypriot government’s attempts to exploit natural resources found in the Cyprus EEZ.

Nevertheless, the Turkish government persists in threatening behaviors, as a diplomat interviewed by protothema.gr stated.

“It is illegal to research waters that do not belong to them. Turkey will make use of all its rights according to international law and act accordingly. They know of the seriousness that Turkey possesses”, Mr. Bagis warned in a very inelegant manner.

To the observation put forth by the “Zaman”’ editor about searches carried out in the past, when Turkish warships had been dispatched to the region, the Vice president of Turkey replied: “That’s why we built our army and trained our soldiers”.