Turkey says gas pipeline project with Turkish Cypriots can provide power to whole island

ISTANBUL, Nov 6 (Reuters) - Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said a planned natural gas pipeline linking Turkey and the breakaway Turkish Cypriot community could eventually provide power to the entire ethnically split island.

Turkey announced a project this year to build a mostly subsea 101-km (63-mile) natural gas pipeline to the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), aiming to supply gas to the community there. It says the pipeline would be built in such a way as to also potentially connect with Europe.

Energy cooperation and maritime jurisdiction in the eastern Mediterranean have been thorny issues between Turkey, Greece and Cyprus for years. Ankara and Athens have repeatedly traded barbs over hydrocarbon exploration in the region. Turkey also does not recognise the Greek Cypriot government to the south of the island and is the only country to recognise the TRNC.

Speaking to representatives from international media in Istanbul on Thursday, Bayraktar said the plan was for Turkey to send gas to the island to generate electricity from a gas-fired power plant there and for the TRNC to potentially later sell some of that power to the Greek Cypriot government if the two sides can agree on a after the Turkish Cypriot side can produce its own power.

"If we find some gas or someone else can find some in the eastern Mediterranean, they can use this pipeline with the reverse flow and they can bring the gas to the island and from the island to Turkey and to the European market," he said.

Bayraktar added that Ankara was also open to cooperating with Greece on energy.

A Turkish invasion split Cyprus in 1974 after a brief Greece-inspired coup. It still remains divided despite repeated efforts by the United Nations to find a solution to a crisis that has strained Ankara's ties with the European Union.

Turkey backs a two-state solution, which Greece, Cyprus and the EU reject.