ANALYSIS-Turkey-Cyprus spat a sign of conflicts to come?


* Cyprus gas exploration fuels regional tensions

* Globally, maritime resource confrontations could rise

* Diplomacy key to avoiding outright conflict

By Peter Apps, Political Risk Correspondent

LONDON, Oct 6 - With an emerging power testing its strength, valuable resources in the balance and a weakened West struggling to exert influence, the dispute between Turkey and Cyprus over gas drilling may be a sign of wider things to come.

In Southeast Asia, the Arctic, and perhaps also Africa and Latin America, disputed maritime boundaries may become flashpoints as rising scarcity of energy and other resources coincide with a shift in the geopolitical balance of power.

The United States and other Western powers,their relative influence waning, may have to play a subtle diplomatic game to ensure conflict is avoided and important relationships are not jeopardised.

"What we're seeing here is theatrics," says Thomas Barnett, US-based chief strategist for political risk consultancy Wikistrat. "The trick here is to manage it."

In the short term, the Cyprus dispute has produced what increasingly looks like one of the most complex naval and political face-offs in the Mediterranean in years.

Western diplomats have watched with alarm as Turkey has sent naval vessels to escort an exploration vessel into waters it believes belong to Turkish-backed northern Cyprus. That move appeared to be a retaliation for drilling by U.S. company Noble Energy in waters internationally recognised as belonging to the Cypriot government.

[link to www.trust.org]