B747 captain experiences confusion over an airway manual instruction concerning flight from ankara a...

Narrative:

We were transitioning between ankara acc approaching fir for nicosia acc. I may have misinterpreted special instructions listed in the commercial airway manual. The manual instructs crews to disregard instructions from ankara; when ankara instructs crew to contact ercon acc. I'm not sure what I should have done. We were still in ankara airspace; but approaching nicosia. Ankara and nicosia do not communicate with each other due to bad political relations between countries. We did a self-hand off successfully; but when ankara instructed us to contact ercon control (we were still approximately 40 miles from nicosia airspace); as instructed in the manual we politely acknowledged the request; but disregarded it. We continued to monitor ankara and nicosia simultaneously. As we were approaching nicosia airspace; we heard ankara request us again to contact ercon control. Not sure what to do; I decided to not acknowledge this transmission. Approximately 3 minutes later; were passed into nicosia airspace. Need clarification on how to handle this issue. Crews are not normally instructed by the commercial airway manual to deliberately disregard instructions from ATC. Ercon control does not appear to be an ICAO recognized ATC and they are not listed on the commercial charts. What is their status?

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B747 Captain experiences confusion over an airway manual instruction concerning flight from Ankara ACC entering Nicosia ACC; that instructs not to contact Ercon when instructed to do so by Ankara.

Narrative: We were transitioning between Ankara ACC approaching FIR for Nicosia ACC. I may have misinterpreted special instructions listed in the Commercial Airway Manual. The manual instructs crews to disregard instructions from Ankara; when Ankara instructs crew to contact Ercon ACC. I'm not sure what I should have done. We were still in Ankara airspace; but approaching Nicosia. Ankara and Nicosia do not communicate with each other due to bad political relations between countries. We did a self-hand off successfully; but when Ankara instructed us to contact Ercon Control (we were still approximately 40 miles from Nicosia airspace); as instructed in the manual we politely acknowledged the request; but disregarded it. We continued to monitor Ankara and Nicosia Simultaneously. As we were approaching Nicosia airspace; we heard Ankara request us again to contact Ercon Control. Not sure what to do; I decided to not acknowledge this transmission. Approximately 3 minutes later; were passed into Nicosia airspace. Need clarification on how to handle this issue. Crews are not normally instructed by the Commercial Airway manual to deliberately disregard instructions from ATC. Ercon Control does not appear to be an ICAO recognized ATC and they are not listed on the Commercial charts. What is their status?

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

Attributes
ACN	1040849
Time
Date	201210
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	LTAA.ARTCC
State Reference	FO
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Dusk
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B747-200
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Cruise
Route In Use	Airway UB545
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Captain Pilot Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Events
Anomaly	ATC Issue All Types Deviation - Procedural Clearance Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy

B747 captain experiences confusion over an airway manual instruction concerning flight from ankara acc entering nicosia acc; that instructs not to contact ercon when instructed to do so by ankara.