Soeren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,
Israel, Greece and Cyprus have signed an agreement for a pipeline project to ship natural gas from the Eastern Mediterranean region to Europe. The deal comes amid increasing tensions with Turkey as Ankara seeks to expand its claims over gas-rich areas of the Mediterranean Sea.
The 6-billion-euro ($6.6 billion) project envisages the construction of a 1,900-kilometer (1,180-mile) undersea pipeline that would carry up to 20 billion cubic meters of gas a year from Israeli and Cypriot waters to Crete and then on to the Greek mainland. From there, the gas would be transported to Italy and other countries in southeastern Europe.
The signing of the EastMed pipeline project came a month after Turkey and Libya reached a bilateral agreement on maritime boundaries in the southeastern Mediterranean Sea. The deal, signed on November 27 by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the UN-backed leader of Libya, Fayez al Sarraj, attempts to redraw existing sea boundaries so that Libya ostensibly can claim exclusive rights over 39,000 square meters of maritime waters that belong to Greece.
The bilateral agreement — which establishes a new Turkey-Libya economic zone that the EastMed pipeline would now have to cross — appears aimed at giving Turkey more leverage over the project. Referring to the Turkey-Libya deal, Erdoğan said:
"Other international actors cannot conduct exploration activities in the areas marked in the Turkish-Libyan memorandum. Greek Cypriots, Egypt, Greece and Israel cannot establish a natural gas transmission line without Turkey's consent."
In mid-December, the Turkish Foreign Ministry reportedly summoned Israel's top diplomat in Ankara to inform him that Israel's plan to lay down a natural gas pipeline to Europe would require Turkey's approval.
The European Union dismissed the Turkey-Libya deal was inconsistent with international law. In a statement issued on January 8, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, said:
"The recent Turkey-Libya Memorandum of Understanding on the delimitation of maritime jurisdictions in the Mediterranean Sea infringes upon the sovereign rights of third States and does not comply with the Law of the Sea and cannot produce any legal consequences for third States."
Egypt condemned the Turkey-Libya deal as "illegal and not binding or affecting the interests and the rights of any third parties."
Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias noted:
"Any maritime accord between Libya and Turkey ignores something that is blatantly obvious, which is that between those two countries there is the large geographical land mass of Crete. Consequently, such an attempt borders on the absurd."
On December 11, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Çavuşoğlu hinted that Ankara could use its military to prevent gas drilling in waters off Cyprus that it claims as its own. "No one can do this kind of work without our permission," he said in an interview with the newspaper Habertürk. "We will, of course, prevent any unauthorized work."
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