The Diplomat
The State Secretary for the European Union, Juan Gonzalez-Barba, expressed yesterday in Nicosia his hope that “dialogue and restraint” will allow to find “a lasting and acceptable agreement for all parties” in the maritime dispute between Cyprus and Turkey.
Gonzalez-Barba arrived in Nicosia from Greece, the other EU state currently embroiled in a maritime dispute with the government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan over hydrocarbon prospecting carried out by Turkey in Eastern Mediterranean waters whose jurisdiction is claimed by the other two countries.
The State Secretary was received yesterday by the Cypriot Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nikos Christodoulides, and by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kornelios Korneliou, to whom he conveyed, as he did the day before with his Greek counterparts, the “support and solidarity of Spain as European partners and with common interests in the Mediterranean”.
Gonzalez-Barba also expressed his hope that “dialogue and restraint will lead to a lasting and acceptable agreement for all parties” in the Eastern Mediterranean dispute. The Cypriot government has called on the EU to extend its sanctions against Ankara for the hydrocarbon exploration carried out by Turkey in the waters of the Cypriot exclusive economic zone. Last September, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, defended in Nicosia during a joint press conference with Christodoulides that “a way of negotiation and dialogue be opened between Turkey and Cyprus in matters of maritime delimitations” in the same way that “Spain does with its neighbors when there are differences”, in reference to Morocco.
Regarding the Cyprus question (the island has been divided since 1974 between a self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which has only been recognized by Turkey, and the Republic of Cyprus, a majority Greek-Cypriot entity, with its capital in Nicosia, which does have international recognition and is even listed as a member state of the EU), Juan González-Barba stressed to his interlocutors that “it was now more necessary than ever to redouble efforts within the framework of the United Nations to reach an agreement in favor of the unification of Cyprus as a bizonal and bicommunal state”.
In the first part of the tour, the State Secretary expressed his satisfaction last Tuesday in Athens for the start of exploratory talks between Greece and Turkey, which began last January 25 in Istanbul to address the dispute that arose months ago over Turkish gas exploration southeast of the Greek island of Rhodes, in waters that both Ankara and Athens consider part of their exclusive economic zone, and also underlined Spain’s position in favor of “a lasting and satisfactory solution in the Eastern Mediterranean”.
