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    Categories: 2020

Armenian Foreign Minister expressed support and solidarity to the Cyprus side on the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Arminfo, Armenia
Jan 23 2020

ArmInfo. Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan held a telephone conversation with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cyprus Nikos Khristodulidis.  As the Armenian Foreign Ministry press service told ArmInfo, the  interlocutors discussed a number of issues, both bilateral and the  Armenia-Cyprus-Greece format, exchanged views on preparatory work for  the Armenia-Cyprus-Greece summit to be held in Yerevan.

In the context of the development of the situation in the Eastern  Mediterranean, the Armenian Foreign Minister expressed support and  solidarity to the Cyprus side. The parties emphasized the importance  of international cooperation in ensuring and strengthening regional  security and stability.

It should be noted that Turkey sent troops to Libya to support the  side of the civil war, with which it drew up memoranda on the  division of maritime borders. According to these documents, Turkey  and Libya declare that a significant part of the exclusive economic  zone of Greece belongs to Turkey. Based on this memorandum, Turkey  declared its rights to the Eastern Mediterranean and sent a drilling  vessel to the southern shelf of Cyprus. As noted, the right to drill  in this area has already been granted by Cyprus to the foreign oil  and gas companies Eni and Total.

Earlier, the EU has already imposed sanctions on Turkey for  exploration in disputed waters off the coast of Cyprus, which is a  member of the community. Ankara last year entered into an agreement  on the division of the sea space in the Eastern Mediterranean with  the Libyan Government of National Accord (PNC), led by Faiz Sarraj.  Then Ankara stepped up assistance to its supporting forces,  announcing the transfer of its military to Libya.

A number of states claim to develop hydrocarbon deposits in the  Eastern Mediterranean, including Turkey, Cyprus, Greece and Egypt,  which, in particular, undermines attempts to reach an agreement on a  political settlement in Libya. So, Athens, responding to Ankara's  attempts to agree on the division of the sea space with the PNS,  became close to Sarraj's main adversary – Field Marshal Khalifa  Haftar, commander of the Libyan National Army.

This problem was previously commented by TASS by the Permanent  Representative of Russia to the EU Vladimir Chizhov, who worked for a  long time in Greece and Cyprus, and in 1997-2000 he held the post of  special representative of the Russian Federation on the Cyprus  settlement issue. According to him, the problem of field development  in the region is exacerbated not only by Turkey's occupation of  Northern Cyprus, but also by the lack of a clear understanding of the  issue of the continental shelf of the islands in international  maritime law. This creates a legal vacuum in which each side chooses  its own interpretation, the Russian diplomat noted.

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