Tensions Flare in Mediterranean Scramble for Gas

Date: 24 February 2018 - 21:58

News ID: ۵۰۴۱۰

NICOSIA (Dispatches) -- Warships, threats and multibillion-dollar deals: The scramble for gas in the eastern Mediterranean is fueling hope and tensions across a volatile region. In an area riven by geopolitical feuds the quest for underwater resources has sparked dreams of economic transformation that could bind wary neighbors closer.
But – while there still remain major questions over the scale of deposits – simmering disputes have erupted to the surface as the race for claims heats up.
Off the divided island of Cyprus Friday, Turkish warships forced back an Italian drillship after a two-week standoff that has stirred up a decades-long row and dragged in Egypt and the European Union.
At the same time the U.S. is trying to mediate between foes the occupying regime of Israel and Lebanon as they spar for control gas fields.
"What we see is that energy becomes another flashpoint – so when there is tension between countries, that tension spills over into energy,” said Nikos Tsafos, a senior associate at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
February appeared to bring good news for the Greek-majority Republic of Cyprus.
After a string of disappointments since a first find in 2011, Italy’s Eni and France’s Total announced they had hit potentially major gas deposits off the EU member’s southern coast.
But days later, Turkey once again began flexing its muscles.
As an Eni drillship sailed to explore a contentious area, it was blocked by Turkish warships who said they were conducting maneuvers.
After a costly two-week standoff, Ankara’s forces refused to budge, and when the Italian vessel tried to break the blockade it was forced to turn back, Cypriot officials said Friday.
The confrontation is just the latest with Turkey over the hunt for gas around Cyprus.
Once seen as an incentive to reunify the island, the struggle for resources has become a major stumbling block to restarting peace talks that collapsed last year.
Ankara, which invaded in 1974 and supports a statelet in the north, has consistently sought to halt drilling, saying it is defending the claims of Turkish Cypriots.
Cyprus has enlisted the help of the EU, which eyes the region’s resources as a potentially valuable alternative energy source, and warned that there can be no peace negotiations unless Turkey respects its "sovereign rights.”
Egypt, which sits on the region’s biggest gas reserves and has a key agreement with Cyprus that allows development, has also traded angry barbs with Ankara.
But Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appears to have little incentive to give way as he plays to nationalist sentiments and looks to protect Ankara’s role as a key transit hub.
"I don’t think Turkey is willing to spark a confrontation, but I think it cannot be fully dismissed,” analyst Andrew Neff from IHS Markit said.
"If one of these drillships wanders too far into disputed waters then I think we’ll see Turkey engage in some additional ‘gunboat diplomacy’ in defense of its interests.”
Further to the east, the Zionist regime has been setting the pace ever since it made the first find in the region in 2009.
And Zionist PM Benjamin Netanyahu appeared jubilant – and vindicated – as he hailed a "historic” $15 billion deal to export gas to Egypt on Feb. 19.
Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, which fought a war with Israel in 2006 and has missiles that could hit its offshore projects, insisted his group could win the "oil and gas war.”
"If Israel threatens you, you can threaten it,” Nasrallah said.