Turkish oil company TPAO has opened a tender for oil and gas exploration in the Mediterranean, it said on its website late on Sunday, a move likely to increase tensions over the divided island of Cyprus.
The proposal covers the same parts of the eastern Mediterranean as a tender launched by Cyprus in February. “We don’t know if this is true. If it is, it is another illegality committed by the Turkish side,” Christodoulos Pasiardis, the Cypriot government spokesman, said yesterday.
The winner of the Turkish tender would carry out two-dimensional seismic studies on a 4,000-kilometer (2,485-mile) area in the Mediterranean. Studies will continue for one year after the contract is signed, TPAO said. TPAO said if bidders wanted, they could also make an offer for exploration in the Black Sea on Turkey’s northern coast.
(Reuters)