Pavlos Xanthoulis
President Christodoulides announced that he will seek a collective European response to the new legislation Tayyip Erdogan is preparing, legislation designed to permanently lock in all of Turkey’s claims in the Eastern Mediterranean. These arbitrary claims are not confined to the “gains” Turkey has secured through the invasion and occupation of 37% of the Republic of Cyprus since 1974. They also extend into Cyprus’ maritime zone, off the coast of Akamas.
Turkey officially made this clear back in 2011, when then Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, together with Egemen Bagis, the minister responsible for EU affairs, formally informed all EU member states that Ankara possessed “legitimate rights and interests” off Akamas, west of the geographic longitude 32°16’18”E. Fifteen years ago, Turkey submitted maps and coordinates to the EU Association Council and later to the United Nations. It also sent diplomatic notes claiming that these Turkish rights “exist ipso facto, ab initio,” meaning inherently and automatically from the outset.
There was no serious response in 2011, when Demetris Christofias was president of the Republic of Cyprus. There was no serious response later either, when Nicos Anastasiades was president and Turkey continued to present its arbitrary claims through the same international forums. Ankara kept submitting maps and coordinates to the EU and the UN while the Cypriot state, regardless of who governed or who held the presidency, chose to minimize the issue and sweep it aside.
The same can be said of the current president, Nikos Christodoulides, who even had the “privilege” of hearing Turkey’s claims directly from Tayyip Erdogan himself. In September 2024, Erdogan stood before the UN General Assembly and declared that Turkey has additional claims in Cyprus beyond the northern part occupied since 1974, claims extending “to the west” of the island. Erdogan explicitly stated that “Turkey has rights in the declared continental shelf to the north and west of the island of Cyprus,” directly referring to the arbitrary Turkish claims off Akamas. Ankara had already spent years preparing the ground for these claims, repeating at the EU and the UN, at every opportunity and even when no opportunity existed, that Turkey supposedly holds “legitimate rights and interests” off Akamas.
After 15 years of real inaction by the Cypriot state, Turkey is now entering the next phase. It is preparing a “Blue Homeland” law that will define all Exclusive Economic Zones in the Black Sea, including its arbitrary claims in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean, which naturally includes the Cyprus region. The law may violate international law, but it will politically bind every Turkish government, political party, and military leadership to defend it indefinitely. In the way they always do.
And now, in 2026, President Christodoulides has suddenly remembered to call for a European response. He did not do so in 2024, when he personally heard Erdogan repeat these same claims from the podium of the UN General Assembly. He had also failed to act years earlier, while serving as foreign minister under the Anastasiades government, during the same period when Turkey was filing maps and coordinates with the UN and the EU. Yet now, after public uproar over the Erdogan government’s proposed legislation to formalize these arbitrary claims, he has finally decided to ask for a European reaction.
Should we say “better late than never”? I fear that phrase does not apply to a state that has spent years exposed to arbitrary Turkish claims. A state that boasts about holding the Presidency of the European Union, yet for 15 years lacked the courage to present a serious position within its own natural arena, the EU itself. A state that never insisted that every aspect of EU-Turkey relations be directly tied, in practical and concrete terms rather than empty rhetoric, to Ankara’s obligation “to respect the sovereignty and sovereign rights” of all member states “without discrimination.”
