The United States no longer appears impartial in the row over the Eastern Mediterranean, the spokesperson of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) said Tuesday.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's one-sided remarks and multiple visits to Greece and Greek Cypriot administration, but not the Turkish side, show that he has lost his neutral stance, Ömer Çelik said after the party's Central Executive Committee (MYK) meeting.
"By only going to the Greek side (of Cyprus), not visiting the Turkish side, or visiting Greece twice in a month, by giving messages that are biased, (the U.S.) loses its neutrality and does not make a positive contribution to the solution of this problem," Çelik said.
He expressed hope that Washington and Pompeo will soon change their stance on the issue.
After months of disputes over hydrocarbon exploration activities and maritime zones in the Eastern Mediterranean, Turkey and Greece recently agreed to hold exploratory talks. The talks will be the 61st of their kind, to try to come up with fair, sustainable and inclusive solutions to problems in the Eastern Mediterranean, since March 12, 2002.
Such talks continued regularly up until 2016. However, since that date, both due to political conjecture and Athens' reluctance, there have not been any new rounds.
Turkey has demanded that the host of disagreements it has with Greece be handled as a whole. Those include territorial waters in the Eastern Mediterranean, the continental shelf, the demilitarization of the islands, the legal status of geographical formations, the width of national airspace and search and rescue operations.
Turkey also demands that the topics of the continental shelf and exclusive economic zones (EEZ) should be approached with equitable principles, unlike Greece's current expansionist approach.
