Turkey has decided to stop energy projects with Italian giant ENI in retaliation against the company’s
involvement in oil and gas drilling off Cyprus, the Turkish energy minister was quoted as saying by the semi-official Anatolia news agency.
“We have decided not to work with ENI in Turkey, including suspending their ongoing projects,” Taner Yildiz said. ENI, along with the Turkish group Calik, is a partner in the Samsun-Ceyhan pipeline project that aims to deliver Russian and Kazakh oil to Turkey’s Mediterranean coast.
In January, Cyprus signed license agreements with ENI and the South Korean firm Kogas that cover exploratory drilling off the coast of Cyprus. Ankara has warned that companies involved in the Cyprus exploration process would be excluded from Turkey’s energy investment plans and said that Turkish Cypriots have equal rights in exploiting the island’s energy resources.
Only Turkey recognizes its occupied territory in north of the island, not the government of the Republic of Cyprus, which became an EU member in 2004. The break-off of the energy deal came although Turkey earlier this month said energy issues wouldn’t affect relations with Greece, which has an interest in the Cypriot energy developments.
“We have the intention of using energy issues not as a reason to create tension but as a reason for growth and opening,” Yildiz told the Turkish daily. “We will see whether other countries will follow this principle.” He added that the Turkish government has told Greece that it had no current intention of conducting exploration in the countries’ shared sea areas.
Ankara is opposed to Greece exploring for oil and gas in the Aegean until a dispute over the delineation of the continental shelf has been resolved as Turkey does not recognize the internationally-accepted Law of the Sea.
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