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Turkey unfazed by EU sanctions threat

Friday, 11 December 2020 12:54 AM [ Last Update: Friday, 11 December 2020 1:55 AM ]

Bianca Rahimi

Press TV, London

EU leaders told Turkey in October to stop exploring in the contested eastern Mediterranean waters or face consequences. Earlier this week all EU states agreed that in their view, Turkey has made no positive shift away from its policy of exploring in contested waters, and upped its threat of sanctions.

Ankara urged the EU to act with "common sense" to solve the dispute but ahead of Thursday’s EU summit Turkey’s President made his stance very clear. Germany, the current holder of the EU's six-month presidency, holds the key to whether sanctions will go ahead. However, Turkey resuming its gas exploration off Cyprus in October angered Berlin.

Turkey’s row with Greece and Cyprus over the extent of their continental shelves in the east Mediterranean flared up in August when Turkey sent a survey vessel to waters claimed by Greece. The two European nations accuse Ankara of drilling for hydrocarbons off its continental shelf.

Turkey pulled the vessel out in September to allow for diplomacy with Greece, but then sent it back to the area, prompting an angry reaction from Greece, France and Germany. However, Ankara seems unfazed.

The EU created a sanctions program last year to punish what it calls unauthorized exploration in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, freezing assets of people and companies accused of planning or participating in activities in Cyprus’s exclusive economic zone or on its continental shelf. Only senior officials of Turkey’s state-owned Turkish Petroleum Corporation were put on the list but that was not enough for Greece. It is a delicate situation for Germany, having to mediate between two NATO members Ankar and Athens, without seeming to have divided loyalties.

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