Israel Starts To Pump Gas From Their New Fields

[Jeff]

How much of a game changer is this? Israel has plenty of energy now and it moves neighbors closer to them economically.

 

While you were focused on Soleimani, Israel became a natural gas superpower

[Ivanhoe]

While gas sales will provide the proverbial sinews of war, Israel will need it. Surrounding nations, and those who threw in with the Arabs in the 1970s, now have a financial motivation to drive the Jews out of Judea.

[Mobius]

The joke used to be Moses wandered for 40 years to find the only place in the middle east that had no oil. Well now they have natgas so that is good enough.

[Colin]

It means a lot of revenue and closer ties with Greece and Cypress

[NickM]

It means a lot of revenue and closer ties with Greece and Cypress

Yes, I've been watching the Greek news RE: closer ties between Greece and Israel and Cyprus--and along with that 'The Sultan's machinations' in trying to 'horn in' on the Natural Gas 'action'.

[DKTanker]

The joke used to be Moses wandered for 40 years to find the only place in the middle east that had no oil. Well now they have natgas so that is good enough.

Moses could part the Red Sea, I guess the Med was a bit too much even for him.

[Daan]

Turkey has staked a claim on the part of the Mediterranean that the Israel-Greece gas pipeline is supposed to cross, to the detriment of Greece's EEZ. I wonder how this will play out.

 

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/politics/turkish-libyan-maritime-pact-a-game-changer-in-emed/1671447

 

Cyprus and Greece perceive their EEZs as rather different:

[Mobius]

The contental shelf doesn't extend very far from shore in the eastern Med. The center is pretty deep. Yeah,points G-H. include territorial waters in a map of shelf claims. That's a non sequitur. The Greeks own all those islands out there. If they were to extend their ownership to equal distance from the shore it would look like the lower map so there is a gap for the pipeline.

[Yama]

They are decent sized fields, but don't really make Israel a new Kuwait or anything. Finds do hold promise for more recoverable gas from the region - Egypt has also made signifant finds from their side of EEZ.

[Nobu]

Turkey will eventually get cut into the deal after the obligatory bazaar posturing on its part.

[Mobius]

Those tiny Greek islands right off the coast of Turkey really allow Greece to claim a lot of sea territory. They sea block Turkey.

[Panzermann]

Those tiny Greek islands right off the coast of Turkey really allow Greece to claim a lot of sea territory. They sea block Turkey.

 

 

Which is the real reason Turkey is so angry/greedy about them.

[lucklucky]

Population have been Greek even when "owned" by Turkey until Italians took them before WW1 in Italian-Turkish war.

[Leo Niehorster]

Not just the islands. For many centuries, the western Turkish coast was also "Greek".

 

--

Leo

[NickM]

Not just the islands. For many centuries, the western Turkish coast was also "Greek".

 

--

Leo

Yes. My grandmother was Greek from Asia Minor--HUGE swatches of Western Turkey were Greek Populated up to the early 1920s

[Mikel2]

 

 

Not just the islands. For many centuries, the western Turkish coast was also "Greek".

 

--

Leo

Yes. My grandmother was Greek from Asia Minor--HUGE swatches of Western Turkey were Greek Populated up to the early 1920s

Turks know how to deal with unwanted ethnic minorities.

[Markus Becker]

Did the Greeks act differently? They began the war that resulted in the *cough* population exchange.

[Nobu]

An interesting, if overlooked. war. There appears to have been a racial component to it, which usually does not end honorably.

[Mikel2]

Did the Greeks act differently? They began the war that resulted in the *cough* population exchange.

 

An interesting piece of trivia on genocides in that part of the world during WWI is that the Turks were getting ready to give the Armenian treatment to the Palestinian Jews, who they saw as unreliable. Who pressured the Turks to spare them? German military advisors and diplomats (Falkenheim among them). Another interesting piece of trivia is that the future commandant of Auschwitz (Hoess) was stationed in Turkey during the time of the Armenian genocide.

[BansheeOne]

Turkey has staked a claim on the part of the Mediterranean that the Israel-Greece gas pipeline is supposed to cross, to the detriment of Greece's EEZ. I wonder how this will play out.

 

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/politics/turkish-libyan-maritime-pact-a-game-changer-in-emed/1671447

 

Cyprus and Greece perceive their EEZs as rather different:

 

Ah yes, Turkey's explorations off Northern Cyprus.

 

Date 18.01.2020

 

EU cuts pre-accession aid to Turkey by 75%

 

In a letter seen by German media, the EU has unveiled cuts in aid to Turkey over illegal gas drilling off Cyprus' coast and military operations in Syria. But Brussels stopped short of ending democracy promotion projects.

 

The EU has cut pre-accession aid to Turkey by 75%, according to a letter sent to the European Parliament by EU foreign affairs commissioner Josep Borrell and seen by the Essen-based Funke Mediengruppe.

 

Turkey will now only receive €168 million ($186 million) of which €150 million will be spent on strengthening democracy and rule of law. The rest is earmarked for rural development.

 

Borrell justified the cut by saying it was in response to Turkey's decision to stage a military operation in northeastern Syria and conduct unauthorized gas drilling off the coast of Cyprus.

 

Stalled accession

 

Comprising part of a controversial multi-billion-euro package to block refugees from seeking sanctuary in Europe, Brussels agreed to fast-track accession talks for Turkey in 2016.

 

However, the accession process has stalled due to Turkey's growing authoritarianism spearheaded by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

 

The cut in aid, however, doesn't affect the €3.5 billion euros offered to Turkey as part of a larger EU deal to prevent refugees from reaching European shores.

 

'Unauthorized drilling'

 

The EU has already warned Turkey of possible repercussions over illegal gas drilling off the coast of Cyprus.

 

In November, the European Commission unveiled a sanctions regime to target "individuals or entities responsible for, or involved in, unauthorized drilling activities of hydrocarbons in the Eastern Mediterranean."

 

Turkey, however, argues that it is drilling within its territorial rights — or those of Turkish Cypriots.

 

https://www.dw.com/en/eu-cuts-pre-accession-aid-to-turkey-by-75/a-52049775