Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in an interview with Reuters News Agency in Istanbul, has stated that international law dictates that any natural resources to be discovered in Cyprus must be fairly distributed between the north and the south according to the population ratio, Turkish President Erdogan has said.
In the interview, Erdogan, reminding that Turkey was one of the three guarantor countries for the island, said that there were areas off the coast of Cyprus where both Turkey and South Cyprus could conduct hydrocarbon exploration activities.
“However what does international law dictate? It says that any resource discovered or extracted, this could be fish or oil, needs to be distributed fairly according to the population ratio of the two sides. What are they doing? They want to deprive or exclude North Cyprus from all of these resources. This is not possible in international law. More importantly, we are seeing countries, which have no rights in the area trying to gain a say in all that is taking place. This is where the problem lies”. Erdogan said.
BRT