The Cyprus Question and the East Mediterranean in TFP

The Ottoman millet system was a kind of federation in which autonomous, self-governing religious communities were allowed to rule themselves under their own laws while retaining their ethnic, cultural and religious identity. When the Ottoman Empire conquered and took the island from its Venetian rulers in 1571, it was inhabited by Greek-speaking people. The Ottomans recognized the Archbishop of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church as the head of the Greek Cypriot millet. This made the Church central to the retention of Greek Cypriot ethnic, cultural and religious identity in the heterogeneous Ottoman Empire.

1648 Wetphalian treaty marked the start of the sovereign state system. The spread of sovereign and unitary nation-state ideas caused disintegration in the Ottoman millet system. 

Megalo Idea ambitiously sought to build up a Greater Greek State by liberating Greek lands, including the Christian Orthodox part of the old Byzantine Empire, that were under the Ottoman Empire’s rule. In 1830, there was a revolt against the Ottoman rule with the ambition of establishing an independent Greek kingdom. However, the revolt was crushed by Ottoman Empire.

The war with Russia weakened Ottoman authority over the Balkan's and started the disintegration in Balkan states. The fall of Plevna in 1877-1879 paved the way for Russia’s advance to the Ottoman Empire's capital, İstanbul, a move viewed by the UK as a threat to its interests in India and its Middle East trading routes following the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869.

The UK offered protection to the Ottoman Empire against further encroachments by the Russian Empire in exchange for certain concessions from the Ottomans allowing the UK to use Cyprus as a base to protect its interests.

The UK government proclaimed the annexation of Cyprus on November 5, 1914, once the Ottoman Empire entered the First World War on the side of Germany.

After the war, Cyprus ceased to be a foreign policy priority for Turkey, which recognized “the annexation of Cyprus proclaimed by the British Government on the 5th November, 1914” by the 20th article of the 1923 Lausanne agreement. Turkey retained its interests nonetheless according to Article 16 of the treaty which, in stating that “the future of these territories and islands being settled or to be settled by the parties concerned”, provided a legal basis for Turkey to be a party to the Cyprus problem in the mid-1950s. 

The then President of Turkey İsmet İnönü (1938 to 1950) preferred an isolationist foreign policy towards Cyprus within a framework that sought to remain committed to the Lausanne Treaty. Turkey recognized UK sovereignty over Cyprus with the Treaty of Lausanne and then, on January 23, 1950, said that Cyprus is not an issue for Turkey. Turkey was satisfied with the status quo and preferred the continuation of the UK rule in Cyprus that maintained a balance between Turkey and Greece. 

The Cyprus Problem is one which started in the 1950s for Turkey because before that, as it was deemed closed in Lausanne, there was no such thing as Cyprus Problem and while I was studying at primary school, Cyprus was even hardly shown on maps lest people remember the past. But in the 1950s, when Greek Cypriots themselves initiated an independence movement or when they attempted a campaign to annex it to Greece, the Turkish people living there gradually started to feel uneasy. 

The new Republic’s security was assured by Turkey, the UK, and Greece under the Treaty of Guarantee against constitutional violations. Also, under another treaty, the Treaty of Alliance, in addition to the provision for 950 Greek troops, 650 Turkish troops would redeploy for the first time since they departed in 1878. The Turkish flag would be flown in Cyprus again.

The US adopted interventionist policies and started to play a key role in the European integration project through the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan also provided substantial economic aid to Greece and to Turkey. At the same time, the US was actively promoting NATO as part of its efforts to constrain the Soviet threat. The proactive regional policies of the Democrat Party, which came into power in Turkey on May 14, 1950, and the subsequent accession of Turkey to NATO in 1952 were to have a great impact on Cyprus in the ensuing years. Turkey sought to bolster its security by taking its place in NATO as protection against the Soviet Union. Turkey had to maintain good relations with Greece in order to have access to Marshall Plan funds. Any tension or possible confrontation between Turkey and Greece would have been unacceptable to the US since friction between these two important NATO member nations would have undermined the deterrent effect of the NATO pact. Thus, the Cold War parameters were constraining Turkey’s actions due to its dependence on NATO guarantees against the Soviet threat and its claims to Turkish territory. Thus, the then Foreign Minister of the Democratic Party, Fuat Köprülü, similarly to the Foreign Minister of the Republican People’s Party, declared that Cyprus was not an issue for Turkey.

In the 1950s, nationalism and independence were the driving forces behind the efforts of many countries seeking secession from colonial rule. Cyprus as a colony of the UK was no different. It was the dawn of a new era in Cyprus when Archbishop Makarios became Primate of the autocephalous Church of Cyprus in 1950. Less than three years later, the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters (EOKA: the Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston) was established on March 7, 1953. The island was caught up in the cross surge of two fully-fledged nationalist sentiments. The  first, based on the Greek community’s struggle for decolonization from British rule, was orientated towards the unification of the island with Greece (ENOSIS) either by absorbing Turkish Cypriots or denying them a say in sovereignty. Meanwhile, the island’s Turkish community claimed that if the UK was to leave Cyprus, then the island should revert to Turkish sovereignty. However, as it became apparent that this option was not feasible, the idea of Taksim – the partitioning of the island – began to gain support among Turkish Cypriots.

The Greek Cypriots viewed the 1960 Republic as an unfair system, claiming that the island’s fate had been decided by outsiders. They also asserted that it did not reflect the principles of democracy insofar as the Turkish Cypriot community, representing less than one-quarter of the island population, had equal political rights. 

Makarios's thirteen constitutional amendments proposal of November 30, 1963, sought to remove the checks and balances provided by the 1960 Constitution, including Turkish Cypriots’ rights of veto, separate majority voting in the legislature, and separate municipalities. These amendments sought to further reduce the Turkish Cypriot community to an obvious ethnic minority. 

The 1960 Republic of Cyprus (ROC) was not strictly a federal state, but rather a functional federation due to the characteristics derived from the republic’s bi-communal structure. Despite being a unitary state, the ROC’s constitutional provisions protected the political equality and political rights of Turkish Cypriots as one of the island’s two communities. Sözen (2004) states that the 1960 ROC was also referred to as a consociational democracy. The 1960 constitution provided the Turkish Cypriot community with a set of checks and balances that ensured political power was shared between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. The political equality of Turkish Cypriots, less than one quarter of the population of the island, was guaranteed by the need for the consensus of both communities when it came to decision making. The Turkish Cypriot Vice President of the ROC had the right of veto in the executive and no decision could be taken in the legislative body without the agreement of separate majorities among the representatives of both parties in the legislature. The Constitutional Court was composed of a Turkish Cypriot judge in addition to a Greek Cypriot judge and a neutral president.

With the attacks on Turkish Cypriots continuing, Turkey appealed to the UN Security Council on February 13, 1964, which on March 4, 1964, in SC Resolution 186 urged deployment of a UN Peacekeeping Force on the island and the designation of a mediator and asked the Cyprus Government to take all necessary measures to stop the violence.

Makarios shifted his struggle against the Turks from the arena of constitutional law, into the field of terrorism. Following the movement of Turkish armed forces and a flight of Turkish jets over Nicosia, a “Peace Keeping Force” was established on December 27, 1963, with soldiers from the three guarantor powers, and Nicosia was divided by the “Green Line” drawn by British General Peter Young (Sözen, 1998: 19). Once the Green Line was drawn, Makarios declared that he unilaterally abolished the 1960 treaties, and subsequent terrorist attacks were launched against Turkish Cypriots inflicting widespread damages as identified later in the “Ortega Report,” a survey of
damaged Turkish Cypriot property carried out by UNFICYP (United Nations Peacekeeping Force in
Cyprus) in 1964. 

The UN resolution had been drafted and adopted in violation of the London and Zurich agreements of 1960, as though by a single Greek Cypriot republic when the actual Republic of Cyprus constituted the two sides (Gazioğlu, 2001). Turkey had agreed to the resolution conditionally, stating that the resolution’s use of the term the “Cyprus Government” must denote the legitimate government formed by Makarios, Küçük, three Turkish Cypriots and seven Greek Cypriot ministers under the 1960 Constitution and the agreements on Cyprus. İsmet İnönü, the then Prime Minister of Turkey, conveyed this condition of Turkey to the head of the UK’s delegation at the UN specifically asking that it be brought to the attention of the Secretary-General. In addition, in a message sent on March 11, 1964, he asked the UK to confirm what was meant by the expression “Government of Cyprus”. In its response to Turkey, the UK stated that they were of one mind with Turkey and there was no divergence on the issue. The UK laid it down as a condition too but the conditionality was to become void. Over time, the term Government of Cyprus as included in the resolution became synonymous with the Cypriot government that under Makarios had excluded Turks from holding office and yet was recognized as the sole state and official government of the entire island. Since the UK and the US increasingly acknowledged this status quo as the de facto situation, the so-called Cyprus Problem grew more intractable with a settlement still seemingly out of reach generations later. Thus, with the passage of the UN resolution 186 dated March 4, 1964, many of the entitlements and rights enjoyed by the Turkish side as a consequence of the Treaties of 1959-60 were lost. Turkey, conveyed this condition of Turkey to the head of the UK’s delegation at the UN specifically asking that it be brought to the attention of the Secretary-General (Prem 11/4706-28672, 1964). In addition, in a message sent on March 11, 1964, he asked the UK to confirm what was meant by the expression “Government of Cyprus”. In its response to Turkey, the UK stated that they were of one mind with Turkey and there was no divergence on the issue (Prem 11/4707-28964, 1964). The UK laid it down as a condition too but the conditionality was to become void. Over time, the term Government of Cyprus as included in the resolution became synonymous with the Cypriot government that under Makarios had excluded Turks from holding office and yet was recognized as the sole state and official government of the entire island. Since the UK and the US increasingly acknowledged this status quo as the de facto situation, the so-called Cyprus Problem grew more intractable with a settlement still seemingly out of reach generations later. Thus, with the passage of the UN resolution 186 dated March 4, 1964, many of the entitlements and rights enjoyed by the Turkish side as a consequence of the Treaties of 1959-60 were lost. 

Greek Cypriots unilaterally amended the constitutional provisions enshrined in the 1960 Republic of Cyprus and did so without the consent of Turkish Cypriots. Greek Cypriots legitimated their unilateral administration of the ROC using the doctrine of necessity to claim that there was an abnormal situation and that this justified maintaining the new state of affairs. They attribute this abnormal situation to the Turkish Cypriots by blaming them for seceding from the ROC as insurgents who revolted against the ROC and withdrew under pressure from their leaders to establish a separate state. As a result, the Greek Cypriot administration claimed that they represented the whole ROC and adopted an amended constitution accordingly. Since no-one challenges the legitimacy of this constitution, the status quo through the unilateral administration of the ROC continues. The accession of the ROC into the EU has been accomplished with a constitution, one-third of which has been amended unilaterally by Greek Cypriots. 

Turkey used the threat of military intervention as a means of pressure to force the search for a diplomatic solution. Turkey was threatening to use power to complement diplomacy. The use of Turkish navy units in 1964 and 1967 was a part of Turkey’s gunboat diplomacy. If for political reasons, the then Prime Ministers of Turkey in 1964 and 1967, İnönü and Süleyman Demirel, were sometimes seen to support military intervention, their main purpose was to force Greek Cypriots and Greece to find a solution in Cyprus through diplomacy. 

The doctrine of necessity requires the emergence of very specific conditions and can only be enforced or prevail on a temporary basis, essentially for the duration of an emergency situation. Also, the state organ that invokes the doctrine of necessity should be an established constitutional entity in alignment with the rules. The Supreme Court of Cyprus, which was unilaterally and unconstitutionally established by Greek Cypriots in 1964, is neither a constitutional nor a legal court. Yet, this court was the organ that invoked and implemented the doctrine of necessity, an explicit violation of the doctrine. Turkish Cypriots cannot be unilaterally held guilty for the events that led to their insurgency in 1964. Also, Greek Cypriots are guilty to a certain degree for not implementing constitutional provisions of the ROC as well as not recognizing the decision of the Constitutional Court.

The Junta administration that came to power in Greece as a result of the 1967 military coup turned its eyes on Cyprus. Greece wanted Cyprus from Turkey. Subsequently, to Turkey’s rejection of this proposal, the Greek army organized terror attacks in Cyprus that inflicted heavy casualties on Turkish Cypriots. Turkey warned that it would exercise its treaty right of intervention and dispatched its navy to the eastern Mediterranean, an exercise in gunboat diplomacy. Faced with this determined attitude of Turkey, Greece was compelled to withdraw its forces from the island under UN supervision.

Greece’s junta was in dispute with the Greek Cypriot leadership about how best to proceed with ENOSIS. Makarios favored a gradual process. This included encouraging more Turkish Cypriots to emigrate by providing passports and/ or coercing them to leave the island (Sözen, 1998: 16). If this did not work, those in the Turkish Cypriot community who opposed Greek Cypriot policies and refused to comply would be targeted eventually for removal through a lethal campaign of violence. Greece’s military junta was eager for a faster and, in its view, more effective outcome, favoring a direct military attack, even genocide, in order to rid the island of the Turkish Cypriots if they did not comply with Greek Cypriot policies.

Following the attempted coup Turkey initially sought to invoke the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee by pointing out how Greece had violated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Cyprus. However, Turkey did not address Greece on the matter since Athens had violated its guarantor status. Instead, Turkey proposed that the UK join with it that they act together to: prevent the consequences of the coup; ensure the security of Turkish Cypriots in particular; and, ensure that Turkish Cypriots had control of a gateway to the sea. The UK, with its two sovereign bases on the island, declined Turkey’s proposal, being unwilling to deal with reactions from Greece and the Greek Cypriots or, indeed, Moscow-originated propaganda that Cyprus was a colony of the West. The US also did not want Moscow to benefit from any potential confrontation between two NATO members such as Greece and Turkey. In fact, the reality was that Moscow valued the unity and nonalliance of the island.

While the international community was in general opposed to the coup attempt by Greece, it remained resoundingly silent on the issue. The UK did not offer to collaborate with Turkey’s joint intervention proposal while the US failed to persuade Athens to bring Makarios back to the island and his office. Having failed to achieve its aims via diplomatic means, Turkey intervened militarily on the island on July 20, 1974, claiming that otherwise Turkish Cypriots would have suffered grave abuses at the hands of the Greek Cypriots. Such had been the reaction to the Greek junta-inspired coup that the first part of Turkey’s military intervention was generally met with some sympathy and understanding, a widespread view being that it was a justifiable response required to correct an illegal act. Arguably, the Turkish Peace Operation in Cyprus was instrumental in helping restore democracy in Greece by the subsequent overthrow of the junta administration. Everything appeared to be back to normal with the return of Karamanlis in Athens and the return of Makarios to Nicosia.

With the Greek Cypriots insisting on the withdrawal of Turkish troops and the restoration of the 1960 Constitution and their refusal to accept Turkey’s bi-zonal federation or five canton proposals, even in principle, Turkey concluded that the diplomatic way forward was blocked. On August 14, 1974, Turkish armed forces in Cyprus started the second phase of their military operation. Unlike the first phase of the operation, this time Turkey was faced with an international outcry accusing Turkey of being an occupying state in violation of the UN Charter, the 1960 ROC, and the Treaty of Guarantee that protects the territorial integrity of Cyprus. Turkey, reserving its right to intervention, cited the 4th article of the Treaty of Guarantee which entitles Guarantor states the right to act unilaterally in the absence of collaboration. However, the same article limits this right specifically for the sole purpose of re-establishing the state of affairs created by the 1960 treaties. While Turkey’s military intervention has provided a serious advantage to Turkish Cypriots in terms of their security and safety, the use of external military force and occupation of Greek Cypriot property issues have been cited repeatedly by those challenging the legitimacy of Turkish Cypriot administrations. Since 1974, a UN-administered Buffer Zone stretching from the West to the East of the island has physically separated the Greek Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot communities. The Autonomous Cyprus Turkish Administration established in 1974 declared the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus in February 1975, claiming that it was an invitation to the Greek Cypriot leadership to form a bi-communal and bi-zonal federal republic. The Population Exchange Agreement signed in August 1975 helped bi-zonality by allowing Greek or Turkish Cypriots to move from north to south or south to north. 

Intercommunal talks were conducted between the leaders of the two communities on an equal footing with the Greek Cypriot leader accepting that he participated as the representative for his community and not for the government of Cyprus. Despite this, in 1983 Greek Cypriot Leader Spyros Kyprianou rejected negotiating with Denktaş by claiming that the latter is not equal to him. This was to be the very same reason cited by the Turkish Cypriot leadership as justification for the declaration of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) on November 15, 1983, in an effort to change the status quo that was deemed legally invalid by UN Security Council resolution 541.

The Greek Cypriots opposed to the plan, whereas Turkish Cypriots were in support of the plan. For Greek Cypriots, given the choice, their choice of voting ‘‘no’’ lead to an outcome that dampened the legitimacy of the Greek Cypriot claims for the doctrine of necessity. For the Turkish side, their support of the plan showed that they are not secessionist, but rather that they hoped to try to find a way for reunification (Dodd, 2005). This provided an incentive for the EU and the US to amend their policies towards the Cyprus issue by having a first-hand relationship with Turkish Cypriots. Following the US Department of Secretary-General lifted restrictions on investments to TRNC and visiting Cyprus via Ercan, representatives from 12 American companies and the commercial attaches from the US Embassy in Ankara visited Cyprus via Ercan Airport on February 17, 2005 to advise Turkish Cypriot counterparts. On the other hand, the EU decided to integrate Turkish Cypriots closer to the EU and adopted some regulations including the Green Line Regulation and Direct Trade and Financial Aid that are elaborated in the following part. 

The Cyprus negotiations have been on something of a roller-coaster ride in line with the shifting conjuncture. The active strategy the UN followed including its arbitration role towards the end of the Annan Plan process was replaced as it switched to seeking a solution through the role of facilitator. On July 8, 2006, the two sides agreed and signed to setup technical committees for discussion of daily issues and working groups for discussion of the substantive issues. This approach was part of a plan initiated by UN Under-Secretary for Political Affairs İbrahim Gambari. However, the July 8 agreement did not go far beyond the paper it was written on until the February 2008 election of Demetris Christofias that was seen by the international community as a new chance for reviving the negotiations stalled since the collapse of the Annan Plan. Under the auspices of the new UN representative to Cyprus, Taye-Brook Zrihoun, Talat and Christofias met on June 1, 2008, after which it was declared that any settlement should be grounded on single sovereignty and citizenship principles. Yet, despite considerable efforts by the Turkish Cypriot leadership to negotiate a revised version of the Annan Plan as a basis for the new solution parameters, the Greek Cypriot leader opted to follow a policy akin to traditional Greek strategy and to seek new concessions. Long-standing disagreements over issues to do with "security" and "guarantees" thwarted the negotiation process since both sides stuck to their traditional political stance with regard to “red line” issues. Christofias continued to negotiate with Eroğlu between 2008 and 2013 but to no avail. The negotiations that began after the February 2013 election of Nikos Anastasiades (an erstwhile supporter of the Annan Plan), were set aside because of the significant financial crisis facing the incoming government. Despite a joint declaration on February 11, 2014 with Eroğlu, which envisaged “a single international legal personality and a single sovereignty,” Anastasiades suspended the Cyprus negotiations due to tensions over the exploration of hydrocarbon resources in the Mediterranean. Following these developments, the UN Secretary General Special Adviser on Cyprus, Espen Barth Eide, announced on April 7, 2015 that the talks would resume immediately after the presidential elections in North Cyprus. With the election of pro-solution Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akıncı, the two Cypriot leaders started intensive negotiations after their May 11 lunch in the buffer zone. This was followed by a series of very rapid steps as part of confidence-building measures. The Turkish side abolished the visa regime at seven checkpoint border crossings while the Greek side handed over the coordinates of 28 minefields bordering the Turkish side. The cordial atmosphere encouraged decisions to merge GSM and the electricity networks and to open the Lefke Aplıç and Derinya crossing points. While some snags held up progress with the confidence-building measures, the two leaders focused on the comprehensive talks. Despite all these efforts, there was no consensus about the most controversial issues like guarantees and security issues. The positive atmosphere that emerged with the election of Akıncı gradually eroded and was replaced by despair towards the end of the year. UNSG Special Advisor Espen Barth Eide attributed the collapse of Crans-Montana to “a collective failure of stitching together a deal” while the Turkish leadership blamed Anastasiades’ insistence on “zero guarantees and zero troops”. 

At the outset of its EU accession talks, Turkish officials had gone out their way to be amenable and to avoid policies that might be seen as aggressive and contrary to EU interests. However, once Turkey’s EU aspirations and accession began to be questioned in some EU circles, Turkish officials became more forthright and assertive in their statements and the general tone began to sound more strident than diplomatic. This switch in tone and style became more evident after 2010 as the Turkish government started flexing its muscles in a deliberate and strategic shift towards what might once have been called “gunboat diplomacy” as it sought a solution for its conflicts in the region. “Greece and the Greek Cypriots contrarily began moving closer with Israel which was also having problems with Turkey”.

Turkey started to question the validity of a Cyprus problem solution based on a bi-zonal, bicommunal federation where the two communities would live together. Just like the UN Secretary General’s 15 October 2018 report to the Security Council, Turkey stated that it is not interested in supporting a cut-and-dried, open-ended negotiation process in Cyprus (United Nations 2019). Turkish officials started to express and place other options on the table in addition to the federation option. The issue of whether to negotiate or not had become an intrinsic ploy in the Greek Cypriot side’s tactics of the politics of distraction to maintain the status quo in Cyprus. In order for Turkey to throw its weight behind a solution now, the rights of the Turkish Cypriot people on the island must first be recognized. A newly proposed project regarding opening Varosha under Turkish control has been launched by the governments of Turkey and the TRNC as a part of this approach. According to this approach: if there is a solution, closed Varosha will be part of the solution; if there is no solution, closed Varosha will be evaluated according to existing legal rules and opportunities. A similar situation applies to natural gas exploration and extraction activities in the Eastern Mediterranean. Whoever can extract the gas will use it.

Two main issues dominate the political disputes and disagreements in the region, especially between the Greek Cypriot Government and the Turkish Government. The first is about the region’s proposed pipeline infrastructure to transfer natural gas as, for example, the gas forum formed by Egypt, Israel, Cyprus, and others in 2019 to jointly develop the most appropriate and viable infrastructure to best serve their collective needs. The second contentious issues concern the borders of so-called exclusive economic zones (EEZ) such as that declared by the Greek Cypriot administration through the various agreements it signed with Egypt in 2003, Lebanon in 2007 and Israel in 2010. Turkey’s initial position was to argue that the Greek Cypriot administration had no right to negotiate and conclude international agreements unilaterally on behalf of the entire island. Notwithstanding this, the Greek Cypriot government began the process of exploratory offshore drilling for gas in September 2011. Accordingly, the TRNC proposed to the Greek Cypriots on September 24, 2011, that they both suspend the search for hydrocarbons simultaneously in the Eastern Mediterranean waters surrounding the island until settlement of the Cyprus problem. Turkey also officially declared that attempts by the Greek Cypriot administration to unilaterally permit drilling around the island would not be tolerated, asserting that the Turkish Cypriots also had a right to these resources. Turkish authorities began issuing navigational warnings (Navtex) and holding naval exercises and maneuvers, some off the coast of Cyprus. Added to this, the Turkish government signed a continental shelf delimitation agreement on September 19, 2011, with the TRNC identifying their respective continental shelves. Three days later the Turkish Petroleum Corporation was granted the right to begin drilling activities in the region. Turkey also began its own independent exploration of gas reserves off the coast of the northern part of the island, consistent with the license and the continental shelf of the TRNC. In support of its argument that any resources found around Cyprus should be shared by both sides on an equitable basis, Turkey invoked the 1958 UNCLOS as well as Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice (Başeren, 2013). The provision of UNCLOS 1958, including Article 74 on EEZ and Article 83 on the delimitation of the continental shelf between states with opposite or adjacent coasts, suggests seeking agreement in semi-enclosed seas based on the ‘equitable’ principle, yet does not specify how this might be achieved. Turkey maintained that with respect to continental shelves and EEZs in the Eastern Mediterranean, itself a semi-enclosed sea, the issues should be solved based on an equitable solution. Sticking to its interpretation of international law, Turkey insists that rights off the coast of Cyprus must be determined by the continental shelf. Turkey maintains that islands like Cyprus are not countries entitled to demand exclusive economic rights in their offshore waters. The Greek Cypriot government counters that it is entitled to develop hydrocarbon resources in its so-called EEZ by referring to the legal regime of islands in Article 121 which covers both international law and the principle of "equitable" in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCRC) published in 1982. By doing so, the Greek Cypriots have shown they have no intention of holding off on the issue of developing the island’s hydrocarbon resources pending a comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus problem. 

According to the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), coastal states had the right to exercise sovereignty over their territorial waters up to 12 nautical miles offshore. In addition, the Convention stated that coastal states had sovereign rights over their continental shelf for exploration and exploitation purposes, a sovereignty that could extend up to 200 nautical miles from the shore and even more under certain circumstances. While 160 states participated in the third UN Convention, a few refrained from signing the treaty. Greece ratified the treaty on July 21, 1995. Turkey is among the countries that have rejected signing the Convention treaty. Turkey found it as unacceptable that Article 3 of the Treaty on breadth of Territorial Sea says “every state has the right to establish the breadth of its territorial sea up to a limit not exceeding 12 nautical miles, measured from baselines determined in accordance with this Convention” (UNCLOS, 1982). Turkey’s position is that the 200-mile extension right turns the Aegean into a Greek sea, blocking Turkish access to the high seas and leaving its Aegean coast encircled by Greek territorial waters an unacceptable outcome detrimental to Turkey’s vital and legitimate interests. Ever since the evolution of the Law of the Sea, Greek islands distributed throughout the Aegean Sea, many within 1,300 m of the Turkish coastline, have represented a major and highly complicated problem. By the late 2000s, the age-old issue of Greek-Turkish animosity originating from the Aegean dispute has resurfaced and the decades-long Cyprus issue has complicated this further. Centuries-old problems between Turkey and Greece have been exacerbated because of the attitude of Greece and the Greek Cypriots laying claim to a continental shelf and an EEZ that would cover all (Greek) islands.