MICHA'EL TANCHUM
A virtual gas hub could create real cooperation in the Eastern Mediterranean.
The strategic equilibrium that has kept the Eastern Mediterranean relatively calm for the past few years may be about to tip. On May 3, Turkey announced that it would commence natural gas drilling operations off the southern coast of Cyprus, in the exclusive economic zone claimed by the internationally recognized government in Greek-dominated south Cyprus. Ankara argues that it is defending the rights of Turkish Cypriots in the northern half of the ethnically divided island who are the legal co-owners of the island’s natural gas but are precluded from participating in its development. On May 12, Turkey doubled down and announced that it would send a second drill ship into Cypriot waters.
Turkey’s brinkmanship comes in response to attempts by Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, and Israel to create a regional energy architecture that will exclude Turkey from the marketing of Eastern Mediterranean natural gas. For example, in 2017 and early 2018, Egypt and Cyprus were in talks about a deal to sell gas from the Eastern Mediterranean to Europe using Egypt’s liquified natural gas plants—which would ensure that the region’s offshore gas bypasses Turkey’s pipelines en route to European Union markets. In February 2018, the Italian energy giant Eni, which in 2015 had discovered Egypt’s massive Zohr natural gas field adjacent to Cypriot territorial waters, announced a significant gas find in Cyprus’s nearby Calypso field.
TEKMOR Note: A virtual hub is a great idea. The most logical place for such a hub is Cyprus indeed. However, placing it in a stretch of land that symbolizes Turkey's invasion, ethnic cleansing & division amounts to nothing less than a Chamberlainian move to appease the beast (not that it would be enough either); the author might as well propose to allow Turkey to get just half the F-35s along with the Russian S-400s. More courageous actions are needed to defend western interests which clearly lie along the Israel, Egypt, Cyprus, Greece axis.
