Drilling activities in the Eastern Mediterranean on Turkey’s agenda - Erdoğan

The drilling activities in the Eastern Mediterranean are on Turkey’s agenda as well said Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who touched upon the drilling activities in the Eastern Mediterranean during a speech he delivered at an event in Ankara yesterday.

We will continue on our way. We will not end our oil exploration efforts just because the Greek Cypriots want us to, Erdoğan said.

Meanwhile, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu touched upon the Cyprus issue during a speech he delivered at a meeting yesterday.

Reminding that they could not achieve success at the Cyprus negotiations process in 2017, he said the Greek Cypriot side did not want to share power, administration or the economy with the Turkish Cypriots.

Now, we say that we should not start negotiations before we decide on what we are going to negotiate. However, we will not wait forever. If the Greek Cypriot side does not want to share anything with the Turkish Cypriot side then we will take our steps accordingly, Çavuşoğlu said.

On the natural gas reserves around Cyprus, Çavuşoğlu said although we insistently said “do not carry out this unilaterally but do it after the rights of the Turkish Cypriots are guaranteed” the Greek Cypriot side started drillings.

We have the Fatih vessel. It is currently carrying out drilling activities off Alanya. We will send it to the South of Cyprus. We will also send our second platform to the region and start drilling. The Barbaros Hayrettin Paşa vessel is holding preliminary preparations for this. We will carry out drilling activities in the established locations, the Turkish Foreign Minister added.