EMC cable: two NAVTEX warnings from Cyprus and Greece for the KOBI RUEGG – Ankara again disputes Cyprus’s EEZ

Two separate navigational warnings, one from Nicosia and one from Athens, are advancing the seabed survey for the East to Med Corridor (EMC), the fibre-optic cable that will form a data bridge between Greece and Saudi Arabia. Both NAVTEX concern the same survey vessel, KOBI RUEGG, and cover areas inside each country’s Exclusive Economic Zone. Ankara responded, as it does in every round, by disputing Cyprus’s EEZ.

Cyprus’s NAVTEX MA86 until November 15

Warning MA86 was issued by the Cypriot Joint Rescue Coordination Centre (JRCC) and is valid from November 2 to November 15. The KOBI RUEGG is carrying out a geophysical survey of the seabed for the EMC cable system inside the Cypriot EEZ, along corridors 10 nautical miles wide, that is, 5 miles on either side of each line.

The EMC corridor is a submarine and terrestrial telecommunications and data-transport cable system that will link Europe with Asia, with Greece and Saudi Arabia as hubs. In October Nicosia issued another NAVTEX for the same vessel’s surveys, to which Antalya replied with a counter-NAVTEX.

The Greek warning for the south-eastern Cretan Sea

The Greek authorities issued their own NAVTEX for a submarine survey aimed at laying a fibre-optic cable in the south-eastern Cretan Sea. The warning is valid from Saturday, November 7 to Wednesday, November 11 and expressly states that the survey area falls within the Greek EEZ and continental shelf.

The work is carried out along two lines defined by 24 points in total. The first starts south of Crete, at roughly 34°10′ N and 26°32′ E, and ends near 34°47′ N and 29°58′ E. The second follows a more northerly course, up to 35°06′ N and 29°53′ E. The warning asks passing ships to keep a safety distance of 2 nautical miles.

It is not the first Greek warning for the KOBI RUEGG. At the end of October the Heraklion station issued a new round of NAVTEX south-east of Crete for the EMC, declaring “void” the Turkish announcement that had preceded it.

Ankara’s response

After the Cypriot NAVTEX, Turkey issued its own announcement and repeated that the survey area belongs to what it calls the “Turkish continental shelf in the Eastern Mediterranean”. Ankara relies on coordinates it unilaterally notified to the United Nations in a letter of March 18, 2020 and denies that the Larnaca station has the competence to issue notices in the area. These Turkish claims have no basis in international law: Cyprus’s EEZ is delimited in accordance with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

In its statement the Turkish side speaks of the “Greek Cypriot administration”, which it does not recognise, and describes Nicosia’s moves as attempts to legitimise “illegal claims” that “are invalid and have not been and will not be accepted by Turkey”. Ankara reacted in the same way to the vessel’s earlier surveys south of Crete.

The new EMC warnings come in the same days as Athens completed the procedure for the NAVTEX for the Abeille Marengo’s surveys south of Kasos; see our report on the NAVTEX for the Greece–Cyprus cable. They are two different projects, one for telecommunications and one for electricity interconnection, but they pass through the same sea area.