Turkey fired off a second maritime warning on Friday, this time rejecting the legitimacy of Cyprus's own notice to marin...

Turkey fired off a second maritime warning on Friday, this time rejecting the legitimacy of Cyprus's own notice to mariners ahead of seabed surveys for the Great Sea Interconnector, the EU-backed undersea power cable planned to link Crete with Cyprus. Ankara's new Navtex declared that the earlier Cypriot notice was issued by an "unauthorised station" and covered an area it claims falls under Turkish jurisdiction. Turkey has insisted it must be consulted before any work proceeds on the project, since the double cable would cross areas Ankara considers its own. A French research vessel, the Abeille Marengo, is scheduled to conduct surveys roughly 700 meters below sea level along the cable route. French companies are central to the Great Sea Interconnector project, which has full EU backing. The same Friday, Turkey issued a separate Navtex contesting Greece's authority over the area south of Kastellorizo, where the multinational exercise Eunomia is scheduled for October 19. Greece had issued its own notice for the exercise hours earlier. Turkey's Antalya Navtex station put out the counter-notice arguing the area falls under Turkish jurisdiction and that Antalya, not a Greek station, is the competent authority. Eunomia includes Greece, France, Italy, and Cyprus, with live-fire drills and multinational air activities planned for that day. The maritime zone covered by both the exercise and the seabed survey notices overlaps with the Abeille Marengo's planned route. Greece and Cyprus have both rejected Turkey's jurisdictional claims over the areas in question. Turkey is the only UN member state that does not recognize Cyprus or its exclusive economic zone, and it has not signed the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. #GreeceCyprus #GreatSeaInterconnector #Turkey