H.E. Mr. Mehmet Hakan Olcay:

I thank Deputy Brady for that short question. It was a rather extensive statement for the most part.

As the Chair has said I have already answered some of the questions but I am happy to repeat some of what I have said.

The Turkish policy towards the eastern Mediterranean has two dimensions. The first is related to the maritime boundary delimitation in the eastern Mediterranean. According to international law, coastal states should enter into negotiations in order to reach an agreement on maritime boundaries and this should be based on the principle of equity. Turkey has the longest coast in the eastern Mediterranean. The second dimension of Turkey's eastern Mediterranean policy concerns the protection of the rights of the Turkish Cypriots over the offshore resources of the island. I am happy to say that since July 2020 there have been no additional tensions in the eastern Mediterranean. With Germany as an intermediary, we have come to an understanding and the drilling and exploration were halted by both sides. I hope the status quoremains in the coming period.

The tensions started in 2003 when the Greek Cypriots concluded a delimitation agreement with Egypt despite our objections because that agreement violated the Turkish continental shelf. In 2007 the Greek Cypriots signed another delimitation agreement with Lebanon, disregarding the Turkish Cypriots' rights in the zone. In 2011 the Greek Cypriots started their drilling activities in the region. We did not take any action at sea from 2003 until the first offshore drilling operation of the Greek Cypriots in 2011. The commencement of those unilateral actions left us with no option but to react. Following the first drilling, Turkey signed a maritime boundary delimitation agreement with the Turkish Cypriots in 2011. Then we identified offshore licence blocks just like the Greek Cypriots have done and we granted survey and drilling licences to the Turkish Petroleum Corporation. We still waited until 2019 for our first drilling activity in the region, which was eight years after the first drilling activity of the Greek Cypriots. These developments brought us to sign a maritime delimitation agreement with the UN recognised legitimate government in Libya in 2019.

All these topics are being taken up with Greece as well and the latest round of the consultative talks were held on 6 October this year. The continuation of the calm environment in the eastern Mediterranean is in our common interest. For this it is necessary to first abandon the understanding whereby Turkey, which has the longest coast in the eastern Mediterranean, is ignored in the region. Our proposal to organise an eastern Mediterranean conference in which all actors in the region would take part for dialogue and co-operation is still on the table. Recently there was a slight provocation with a Maltese-flagged ship, Nautical Geo, which tried to do some research on our continental shelf but that was also averted and the situation did not grow out of proportion.

The Deputy asked about our policy on the HDP and the intention of closing that party down. Political parties in Turkey are among the indispensable elements of democratic and political life but they are also expected to respect democratic and universal principles of law. The request by the chief public prosecutor to Turkey's Court of Cassation for the dissolution of HDP was made on the grounds that its actions as a political extension of the terrorist organisation the Kurdistan Worker's Party, PKK, and statements and activities that it made are not in line with the democratic and universal principles of law. Dissolution of political parties is a legal measure applied in all democracies so it is nothing particular to Turkey. Everybody should respect the judicial process, which is carried out in accordance with the Turkish constitution. As for the lifting of the parliamentary immunity of some members of the HDP, there are judicial remedies and in a recent example Mr. Ömer Faruk Gergerliolu took his case to the Constitutional Court of Turkey and was reinstated.

In northern Syria we have established a secure zone for the internally displaced persons, IDPs, in that region to avoid another influx of migrants coming to Turkey who would then go onwards to European countries. The PKK's extension in northern Syria, the YPG, which is the so called People's Defence Units, exploits the pretext of fighting against Daesh to gain legitimacy and to expand its oppressive role in the region. For this reason we had to fight Daesh and the PKK in the region. Turkey has carried out three operations in the region. The first was in 2017, Operation Spring Shield and then in 2019 and 2020, two other operations took place.

Turkey has not sent any jihadists to Azerbaijan at all but the opposite is true because there is plenty of evidence that PKK elements were used in Nagorno-Karabakh by the Armenian forces and by some foreign fighters from its diaspora. That is all I have to say on that issue. I refer to President Erdoan's statement yesterday that we may have to do something in Syria. That was a reaction to the sad event of two police officers who were stationed in northern Syria being killed on the same day near Idlib.