Sanctions (EU Exit) (Miscellaneous Amendments) (No. 4) Regulations 2020

Lord Northbrook Excerpts

Monday 8th February 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Northbrook (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I will confine my remarks to the unauthorised drilling activities in the eastern Mediterranean regulations. I declare my interest as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus—the TRNC.

By way of background to this statutory instrument, since 2006 Europe has increasingly viewed eastern Mediterranean gas as a resource with huge potential to provide economic growth, mitigate climate change and reduce dependence on Russian gas supplies. European companies have been involved in gas exploration while the European Union has largely supported the idea of a new pipeline that connects Israeli and Egyptian fields with Cyprus and mainland Europe. However, things might be changing. As there is an oversupply of non-Russian liquefied natural gas—LNG—the importance of Mediterranean gas is waning for Europe. Eastern Mediterranean gas is also providing a massive headache, with rival claims by Turkey, Greece and Cyprus on exclusive economic zones—EEZs—and exploration rights. In this short contribution I want to focus on Cyprus. Gas production would be a veritable boon for the cash-poor island.

EEZs are not easy. Greece is one of the signatories to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, UNCLOS. This designates a country’s EEZ as extending 200 miles from its shores. Yet regional powers, Turkey, Israel and Syria, have not signed UNCLOS and do not accept its rulings on EEZs. Lebanon disputes its maritime border with Israel, which it claims was compromised by Israel’s bilateral agreement with the Republic of Cyprus. Turkey argues that Cyprus is entitled to only a 12-mile EEZ until it reaches a resolution on the island’s status, and claims that the TRNC has the right to explore in Greek Cypriot waters. The TRNC believes that the gas resources belong to the whole island and that the north should have its share—a view that I do not feel is unreasonable.

Turkey, as an ally of the TRNC, has deployed exploration and drilling ships to Greek Cypriot waters and sent naval vessels there as well. As a result, the development of gas in these disputed waters has been frozen. Indeed, the tensions between Greece and Turkey over the issue became extremely high last year. Conflict was only narrowly averted and cannot be ruled out in the future. As a guarantor power in Cyprus, I would have hoped that the UK might take a more circumspect view on the gas issue. Now that we have left the EU, this seems a good opportunity to think more outside the box. Instead, we seem to be blindly copying EU regulations, without instead trying to fold the issue into revived Cyprus peace talks.

The failure of these peace talks at Crans-Montana in 2017, despite a major effort by former TRNC President Akıncı, was a great disappointment, especially as the TRNC went out of its way to make concessions, some of which alarmed mainland Turkey to such an extent that it did not want him to have another term. As these bi-zonal, bi-federal talks have failed, the new TRNC President Tatar—rightly, in my view—believes that a two-state solution is the only answer. According to the island-neutral Cyprus Mail, it is reported that, in private, President Anastasiades of the Republic of Cyprus is keen on the idea. The Cyprus Mail’s recent article stated that a section of the population of the Republic of Cyprus believed that he

“had calculatingly spurned the opportunity of a reasonable settlement at Crans-Montana”

because he really believes in a two-state solution.

With regard to the UK’s relationship with the TRNC, I welcome the recent meeting between our Foreign Secretary and President Tatar. Can the Minister say what came out of these talks? After Brexit there are good trade opportunities. As an interim measure, could the UK copy our Taiwan policy, whereby we have a trade office in Taipei, which is very successful, even though we do not have diplomatic relations?

A recent press release from the TRNC President sums up the opportunities well. He said the Turkish Cypriot side desires a win-win situation on Cyprus and believes that solving the decades-long Cyprus problem would help reinstate stability in the eastern Mediterranean. He also said that we should see what ideas and proposals the British diplomats bring to the table. He pointed out that he had also raised the issue of strengthening bilateral relations and commercial ties with the UK now that it had left the EU. Tatar also expressed concerns regarding the opening of certain parts of the British bases for non-military development. Can the Minister write to me on this?

I also ask the Minister, who is so well regarded in this House and has such expertise on FCO issues, when the UN Secretary-General’s 5+1 informal talks convene, will the FCO look at reality and the long-standing deadlock to realise that a two-state solution is the only answer and that the gas situation should be part of these talks, rather than just reinstating this unhelpful statutory instrument?