EU Rebukes Turkey Over Cyprus COP31 Exclusion

Brussels lined up against Ankara on Thursday over the COP31 climate summit Turkey will host in Antalya in November. The European Commission publicly called Turkey's exclusion of Cyprus from informal preparatory meetings "unacceptable" after POLITICO reported the Turkish government had frozen Nicosia out of several sessions and was refusing or ignoring bilateral meeting requests. The exclusion is doubly sensitive because Cyprus holds the EU's rotating Council presidency in the first half of this year and therefore represents all 27 EU governments. "This is unacceptable, and we will also not accept it. You deal with all of the 27, or none of the 27," the Commission's climate chief Wopke Hoekstra told POLITICO. "If you seek to host an international event, that trumps any national sensitivities you might be having." Commission spokesperson Anna-Kaisa Itkonen confirmed at the daily press conference: "Türkiye has assured us that Cyprus would not be excluded from future preparatory meetings for COP31." Turkey maintains no diplomatic relations with the Republic of Cyprus and is the only government worldwide to recognise the breakaway Turkish Cypriot north; the island has been effectively divided since Turkey invaded in 1974.

A more practical diplomatic problem played out in Istanbul. Middle East Eye reported that Israel is weighing whether to spend up to $6 million to relocate its consulate in Istanbul. The current building failed an earthquake-resilience inspection and is slated for demolition, with a new development planned to replace it. The consulate has been partly closed since Israel withdrew diplomatic staff from Turkey in October 2023 over security concerns, and was the site of a shooting in April 2026. Sources said the Israeli government currently lacks the budget for the move and no decision has been taken.

Off Turkey's northern Black Sea coast, the war next door reached Turkish waters in another form. Ukrainian sea drones struck three tankers linked to Russia's shadow fleet on Thursday: the Palau-flagged James II was hit in its engine room about 80 kilometres north of Turkeli, while the Sierra Leone-flagged Altura and Velora were struck during a ship-to-ship transfer. No casualties were reported, and Ankara dispatched coast-guard vessels to the scene.