Greece said it would be willing to agree with Turkey on delimiting their respective economic zones at sea, urging its neighbour to tone down what it said were tensions harming Ankara’s ties with the EU.
The two neighbours, allies in NATO, are at odds over a number of issues from commercial rights in the Aegean to territorial waters and the ethnically-split island of Cyprus.
Turkey’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Ankara has said it is open to discussing maritime delimitation with all countries as long as its rights are respected.
Greece and Turkey almost clashed last year when each sent out warships to sea regions they considered their own. Although those scenes have not been repeated, the two countries regularly snipe over Cyprus, against which Turkey has mounted a consistent challenge to stop the east Mediterranean island exploring offshore for oil and gas.
Cyprus’s internationally-recognised Greek Cypriot government have issued licences for offshore oil and gas exploration, a move that Turkey says disregards the rights of the island’s Turkish Cypriot community.
Offshore exclusive economic zones are maritime areas agreed between neighbouring states, defining where a country has commercial rights such as the right to explore for hydrocarbons. Those zones can extend to up to 200 nautical miles from a shoreline, or, if sharing the sea area with another state, the equidistance between the two.
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