Turkey has stepped up its efforts to assert control over the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, which contains sizeable reserves of natural gas. On January 16, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Ankara intended to start issuing exploration licenses covering the parts of the seabed it has claimed as its own.
Erdogan said that his government was ready to take this step now that it had signed an agreement with Tripoli on the boundary between the Turkish and Libyan offshore zones. If he moves forward on this front, though, he is sure to find himself at odds with Greece, which has complained that Turkey’s offshore claims encroach upon Greek territory.
By extension, he will probably fall into a quarrel with the European Union, which counts Greece among its members. Cyprus (also an EU member) will likely side with Greece, especially since it has its own maritime border dispute with Turkey, as will Israel, which is working with both Cyprus and Greece on the EastMed gas pipeline project.
For his part, Erdogan indicated that EastMed was one of his concerns. “From now on, it is not legally possible to carry out any exploration activity or construction of a pipeline in areas between Turkey and Libya without the permission of both countries,” he said during a televised press briefing in Ankara.