B747-200
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Confusion; Situational Awareness
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General None Reported / Taken
Airspace Structure; Human Factors; Procedure
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?
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.