The pipeline network is capable of pumping around 75 million cubic meters of water from a dam in southern Turkey to the north. The project, which includes a water treatment plant and water tanks, cost 1.6 billion Turkish liras (576.3 million dollars).
Turkish Cypriot authorities say the project compensates for the projected water needs in northern Cyprus for the next 50 years, and the irrigation water will raise revenue in the farming sector.
However, in a letter sent to Ban Ki-moon dated 8 March 2016, Permanent Representative of Cyprus to the United Nations Nicholas Emiliou expressed the ‘strong protest’ of the Government to the completion of the water connection.
He said the pipeline ‘constitutes yet another deliberate act of provocation by Turkey’ aiming at consolidating Turkish effective political and economic control over the occupied part of Cyprus and to bolster the military occupation of the northern part of the island.
Emiliou added that Turkey’s assertion that this is a development
project which will benefit all of Cyprus is legally unfounded,
misleading and false.
No authorization has even been sought from or granted by the
competent authorities of the Government of Cyprus, as is required under
international law, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of
the Sea (1982) and the applicable national legislation.
(famagusta-gazette.com)
(famagusta-gazette.com)
