A total of 12.5 billion TL (€336 million) for the year 2025 was allocated to the north by Turkey’s president’s office as part of its annual financial programme on Wednesday.
The programme foresees a total of 8.5bn TL (€228m) being allocated for investments in the north, while the remaining 4bn TL (€108m) has been allocated for loans to the north, though news website Kibris Postasi said the use of the term “loan” was a formality and that the money is not repayable.
Additionally, the programme promised that “seismic and drilling activities will be intensified within the scope of oil and natural gas exploration activities on land and in the seas,” including in areas of the Eastern Mediterranean described as “the TRNC’s marine license areas”.
This will entail the drilling of a total of 280 wells, while 21,000 square kilometres of three-dimensional seismic data will also be collected as a result of the activities, the office said.
The programme also stated that a Turkish coastguard station will be established in the north, within the scope of a pre-existing agreement between authorities in both Turkey and the north regarding coastguard information sharing, with the aim of “preventing terrorist organisations from entering our country by sea.”
In addıtıon, plans were published for the “identification, translation, and transcription” of Islamic foundation documents from Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Cyprus.
“Elements such as inscriptions, signs, direction signs, symbols which promote our cultural assets will be examined by an expert committee, and these will be arranged in a way that will reveal the essence and originality of our cultural assets,” the office said.
The programme also included plans to “fight against dark propaganda”, with work to be carried out within Turkey and internationally to put its worldview across.
“Activities will be carried out to publicise Turkey’s efforts to fight against terrorist organisations such as Feto, the PKK, and the PYD, and that those organisations are a global threat, and to inform the international public correctly about matters such as the events of 1915 and the Cyprus issue,” the office said.
Feto is the name given by Turkey to the Gulen movement, the conservative group founded by Fethullah Gulen, who is held responsible by Turkey for the failed coup d’état which was staged in the country in 2016.
The PKK is a Kurdish political party and armed guerilla movement which operates in northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey, and the PYD is its Syrian affiliate.
The Cypriot government is one of 34 countries which recognises the events of 1915 as a genocide carried out by the Ottoman Empire.
Turkey, the north, and other countries dispute the categorisation of those deaths as a genocide.
