TRNC News Today 23rd December 2014

Foreign Minister Nami receives President of İzmir Chamber of Commerce and his delegation

Minister of Foreign Affairs – Özdil Nami received President of İzmir Chamber of Commerce, Ekrem Demirtaş and his accompanying delegation in his office yesterday.

At his opening speech, Minister Nami said that as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, their efforts are focused on finding a solution to the Cyprus problem, on the hydrocarbon issue, on finding overseas markets for local products and promoting universities.

Following the Minister’s speech Demirtaş made a presentation about Cyprus economy and explained his proposals in overcoming the difficulties experienced in trade.

Expressing that political problems should be handled and solved separately from economic problems, Demirtaş gave Greece and Turkey as an example.

President Eroğlu: Hellim issue should be resolved in a fair way”

President Derviş Eroğlu said that meetings were held with all authorities of the European Union regarding the hellim issue and added that “At the moment, it is not possible to say something definite…What is important is solution of this problem as we desired. Otherwise, our economy will take a major blow”.

President Derviş Eroğlu visited the Turkish Cypriot Chamber of Industry at the Lefkoşa Industrial Area. During his visit, Eroğlu met with President of Turkish Cypriot Chamber of Industry, Ali Çıralı and some Board of Directors members. Regarding the Greek Cypriot side’s application to the European Commission for taking hellim among protected origin products, Çıralı expressed that supervision of hellim producers in North Cyprus by establishments in South Cyprus cannot be accepted.

Giving information regarding his recent contacts in Brussels, Çıralı said “Their responses satisfied us as they promised Turkish Cypriot producers will also be taken into consideration and supervision of Turkish Cypriot hellim producers will not completely be let to the initiative of South Cyprus”.

No considerable natural gas reserve other than Aphrodite well in Block 12

Noble Energy Company indicated that there is no other considerable natural gas reserve in Block 12 other than ‘Aphrodite’ and even if there is, its amount would be very little and worthless.

Greek Cypriot daily Politis reported that Noble Energy Company which is the licence holder of Block 12 indicated that the previous signs that there could be a second or even a third significant natural gas reserve in Block 12 were not justified according to new research.

The newspaper reported that the main reason of the delay of a new drilling to be made by Noble Energy Company, which announced that drilling would start again at the end of 2014 or at the beginning of 2015, has been these negative indicators.

Source: TRNC Public Information Office