In an apparent plan to surround Cyprus and take oil and gas as foreign companies licensed to also hunt have been licensed by the legitimate government, Turkey is going to send a fourth drillship off the island’s sovereign waters.

That’s in continued defiance of Cyprus and European Union soft sanctions as well as demands from the United States as well as Greece – which, along with Turkey and the former Colonial ruler the United Kingdom are guarantors of security for the island to back off and cease operations.

Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades has repeatedly complained to the United Nations but been ignored and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country will not stop until he gets what he wants, and has been able to do so far, seemingly unstoppable.

Turkey’s Oruc Reis research vessel appeared to be on its way to Cyprus on,, a week after the country’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said it would, according to Kathimerini, with the ship having left from Constantinople, apparently heading for the port of Tasucu in southern Turkey, opposite Cyprus’ northern coast, where it will probably refuel before starting its activities, the paper said.

The Oruc Reis will join with other Turkish ships in Cyprus’ Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ,) parts of which Turkey doesn’t recognize, nor the legitimate government, a member of the European Union that Turkey has been trying to join since 2005.

The Fatih and Yavuz drillships are active off the western and eastern coast of the island and the Barbaros research vessel to the south with no one making a move to stop them as Turkey has warships in the region.

Greece’s new New Democracy government has been watching but not done anything beyond issuing statements although the Turkish ships aren’t trying to encroach into areas of the EEZ where the US energy giant ExxonMobil is drilling, nor bothering ships from France’s Total with that country warning it would send warships if needed.