The Turkish government currently threatens to block exploration of Cyprus’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Claiming that, because the state of Turkey has neither formally recognized the Republic of Cyprus nor ratified the Law of the Sea (a UN ratified law which states that an island has a territorial sea, contiguous zone, continental shelf and EEZ which belong to the sovereign state of the island), Cyprus is incapable of having a continental shelf or an EEZ to explore in the first place. Cyprus, however, has made formal agreements with both the Egyptian and the Israeli governments. These agreements not only delimit legal maritime boundaries between these nations but also have opened up the ability to cooperatively explore the potential hydrocarbon resources in the Eastern Mediterranean.

These threats against Cyprus’s legally claimed EEZ thus also directly affect Egypt, Israel as well as less directly Lebanon and Greece. Through these threats, Turkey violates laws prescribed by both the UN and NATO. The potential of energy reserves in the Eastern Mediterranean are exponentially high. Limiting, illegally, the right of the Greek and Cypriot nations to explore their own resources also severely affects the ability of these countries to improve their own economic standing. And, in the case of Greece, impedes the ability of the country to rise out of its current economic woes.