Tension escalates as Turkey takes on four EU members

Source
China Military Online
Editor
Xu Yi
Time
2020-09-02 16:31:38

Turkish President Erdogan. (Source: Xinhuanet)

By NieShuyi

The jostling and entanglement between EU and Turkey may have a new entry. On August 26, local time, Turkish President Erdogan, in response to the joint military exercise in the Mediterranean Sea organized by the four EU members of Greece, Cyprus, Italy and France targeting Turkey, said Turkey “will not back off” in defending its rights and interests over the natural gas resources in East Mediterranean. This “protracted battle” for resources is continuously having overspill effects and fueling the geopolitical turbulence in the Eastern Mediterranean region and the Middle East.

Since Israel took the lead in exploiting and discovering oil and gas resources in East Mediterranean Sea in 2009, about 4.47 billion ton equivalent of workable oil and gas reserves have been found in the 19 basins in this water over recent years, with nearly 12.28 billion ton more to be discovered. The Mediterranean Sea is expected to become another important energy production source after the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Mexico. In recent years, countries around the waters have gradually divided into two blocs revolving around the resource exploitation. On the one hand, Cyprus, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Palestine and Egypt have formed a regional energy organization - the East Mediterranean Gas Forum (EMGF), and are poised to jointly develop the oil and gas resources in the region and build an energy pipeline around Turkey to pipe the resources to Europe. On the other hand, Turkey has been working with Libya’s Government of National Accord, Qatar and “North Cyprus”, which is only recognized by Turkey itself, to expand its geopolitical interests in the Eastern Mediterranean, North Africa and other regions. With the formation of the two blocs, the demarcation of oil and gas resources in East Mediterranean has become a tool of political struggle among the countries. Under such circumstances, Greece, which has been denying Turkey’s qualification to have a finger in the pie on the grounds that it doesn’t have an exclusive economic zone in the Mediterranean Sea, stands tit-for-tat against Turkey that wants to become the Eurasian energy hub. Moreover, Greece and Turkey also have a vendetta due to historical reasons, the Cyprus issue and refugee crisis.

It’s worth noting that this isn’t the first time that Turkey had a conflict with NATO allies and the EU. Since its failed coup in 2016, Turkey has been in constant tension with the US and Europe. In 2019, Washington and Ankara had a serious spat over the latter’s purchase of Russia’s S-400 air defense missile systems; Turkey has been battling with the US and Europe over the Syrian and Libyan issues; and recently Turkey and Europe, apart from the refugee crisis, have been at loggerheads over the former’s conversion of the historic Hagia Sophia back to a mosque. On August 28, the EU foreign ministers agreed on a list of sanctions against Turkey in case Ankara does not reduce the escalation of its operations in the increasingly tense Eastern Mediterranean region, while Turdey kept tit-for tat without any concessions.

Despite the strained relation between Turkey and Greece, Cyprus, France and Italy, a large-scale military conflict is unlikely. Germany, a key member of EU, is still mediating between Turkey and Greece and it’s possible that NATO’s bellwether US may step in the Turkey-Greece conflict destabilizes the Middle East situation even though it hasn’t declared its stance yet. Greece’s tough stance so far is backed by the EU, so its attitude depends on the EU’s attitude; Turkey, on the other hand, isn’t likely to really attack Greece that’s both a NATO member and an EU member. It just wants to leverage the situation to gain itself more interests regarding the refugee, Syrian and Libyan issues.

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