Turkey's foreign minister says his country will show the “necessary response” to Cyprus if it goes ahead with plans to start exploratory drilling for gas deposits. Ahmet Davutoglu said Friday Cyprus had no right to go ahead with efforts to search for gas before a settlement to reunify the divided island is reached. He did not say what Turkey's response would be. Cyprus has been split between a Greek Cypriot south and a breakaway Turkish Cypriot north since 1974. Turkey opposes the Greek Cypriot government's search for offshore gas saying it disregards Turkish Cypriots' rights. It also believes the search would damage long-running talks aimed at reunification. The Greek Cypriot government has said Turkish Cypriots could share in the potential bounty after a peace accord is signed. Meanwhile, Cyprus' embattled president reshuffled his 11-member cabinet on Friday, in an attempt to combat a political and economic crisis spawned by a deadly blast that wrecked the island's main power station and sapped confidence in the government. President Dimitris Christofias appointed longtime ally and former communications minister Kikis Kazamias to the key finance ministry post. Kazamias, who has also served on the European Court of Auditors, has his work cut out for him to shore up public finances amid growing speculation that the EU member country may be forced to seek a bailout. The island's €17.4 billion ($24.76 billion) economy has already been shaken by a string of credit rating agency downgrades mainly because of the banking sector's large exposure to crisis-afflicted Greece.
