On October 18, 2021, the ninth summit of the Eastern Mediterranean between Egypt, Cyprus and Greece on the issues of energy and security was held (as in previous times) without Turkey. Israel is always attended in this conversations. Cyprus, Greece, Egypt and Israel have a coherent relationship. The priority of their ties refers to natural gas. They have been negotiating for ten years, and they have been in negotiations on presidency levels. Ankara, every year after finish the summit of three presidents, says "it will not succeed without Turkey".
In 2009, after significantly efforts and searches by Nobel Energy enterprise, Italian ENI enterprise and Israeli companies for the first time was announced finding natural gas underwater in the coasts of Israel, Cyprus, Lebanon and Egypt.
The year 2010 was the first collapse of political, diplomatic and military relations between Israel and Turkey due to Turkey's insistence on Hamas cooperation, seizure of "Mavi Mar Mara Flotilla" ship, and killing more than ten Turks on the board by Israeli commando.
When the Arab Spring/ Uprising sparked in the end of 2010. Hence one-by-one, all the countries in Europe, Africa and the Middle East bordering on the Mediterranean Sea have lost their relations with Turkey. Libya has become a big problem for Turkey. Egypt has become Turkey's rival because of a coup against Islamic Brotherhood and Mohammed Mursi, and reaching "Abdel Fattah el-Sisi” to power. Syria and Lebanon from Turkey's closest friends have become biggest deadlock for Turkey. The Cyprus issue remains as a root of Turkey's deep problem. Greece and Republic of Cyprus, as two members of the European Union (EU) stand against any Turkish movement. As well as, France and Italy did not stop their naval maneuver against Turkey's naval movements. Except the Mediterranean Sea arena, Russia does not invite "Turkey" in some major energy conferences.
For ten years, Ankara took every ways to discover and extract natural gas from the Turkish seashores of Cyprus (North Cyprus- TRNC), but finding nothing. Finally, 'The Energy Triangle' created as a natural gas extraction plan between the three allied countries Cyprus, Israel and Greece. Cyprus (South of Cyprus- RoC) owned huge of amount natural reserves in Aphrodite field in block 12, where natural reserves range is from 3.6 to 6 trillion cubic feet, and Calypso field found in Block 6 in 2018, which is estimated 8 trillion cubic feet. and 13 other sub-gas blocks located water borders in Greece Cyprus.
Transformation of Cyprus and Israeli's natural gas to Greece and Europe countries
Since 2014, the Greek Cyprus has called Turkish part of Cyprus that they ready to cooperate with them, but "Turkey" has not allowed this to happen! Later, at the beginning of 2020, a natural gas pipeline that called Med-East project for transportation of Israeli and Cyprus gas along 1900 kilometers underwater launched to Europe via Crete island of Greek. Then Mustafa Akinci, the president of the Turkish Cyprus, announced that they regretted Greek Cyprus’ rejection of his side’s proposal for cooperation on the joint exploration and profit-sharing of hydrocarbon resources around the island of Cyprus.
For Turkey, all these problems continue and came due to natural gas's maneuver by in the coasts of Turkish Cyprus. Countries that involved in producing and exporting of natural gas have not allowed "Turkey" to participate with them. Moreover, the EU imposed sanctions on Turkey due to Turkey's interventions in the water border of Cyprus and Greece. That's why the Turkish lira losing 650% of its value over the past 10 years. The Turkish President 'Recep Tayyip Erdoğan' has changed the president of Central Bank of Turkey three times in one year. In fact, he needs to change his policies in the region, not the head of the central bank, because the problem does not come from a point that bank's interest rate has increased, the core of the problem comes from a decrease in foreign reserves in the Central Bank of Turkey, because foreign investors withdraw both their capitals and moneys either dollars or Euros from Turkish banks.
It is questionable! that Turkey is an important industrial country, but they were importing about 75 per cent of needed oil and natural gas from abroad. It spends between $43 billion to $56 billion annually to purchase of natural gas; sometimes it equivalents to 19 percent of the country's annual public budget. It cannot easily accept the fact that the country imports energy from Nigeria and Russia, but in the south and northwest part of Turkey, there has been a revolution of energy and he is just a seeker.
We are in "Mediterranean Institute for Regional Studies" have participated and observing on Trilateral Meeting of Cyprus- Greece- Egypt, which is supervised by MNC and University of Nicosia and Voice of Cyprus:
Kurds, whether in Syria or Iraq, are geographically and geopolitically close to energy, therefore they directly involved in these changes. All conferences, even in most of academic papers and panels describing the geo-economic strategic position of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and Northern Syria "without Kurds’ presence”, Every time, as a reference to Donald trump's speech, professor Andreas and Khaddar, who supervised my doctoral dissertation, says "Mr. Kurd is also present" and he turned to me "you have fifteen minutes, Mr. Kurd". They were looking like that the Kurdish political leadership have fully aware that we established an institute for strategic studies called "Mediterranean Institute for Regional Studies", while it was merely our efforts, tiredness and pockets. The Kurds themselves are not visible in these events, which are directly related to security, economic and diplomacy of Kurdistan.
The condition in the Mediterranean basin is both pleasant and very complex. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has also entered, wherever "Turkey" has a project in the area, the UAE has another project against "Turkey". At the end of September 2021, the UAE bought 22 percent of Israel's Tamar field shares about $ 1 billion. This coincides with opening Israeli embassy in UAE. While, in politics and political science, there is no permanent norm, which means we cannot say that Turkey-Israel, or Turkey-Egypt, or Turkey and Greece will not normalize their relations forever, but problems of "Turkey" have extended with countries of water borders in the Mediterranean. Erdogan and Turkish institutions have made many fruitless trips and soft speeches in order to find a gap to normalize his relations with each of these countries. What I have understood is that these countries consider "Turkey" as a significant and immense position, but without Erdogan. They do not trust Erdogan who always thinks of Turkish neo-Islamism and ethno-nationalism, and has publicly shouted earlier, "Your land's registration is in our archives" as a sign that Egypt, Israel and Cyprus were in hands of the Ottoman Empire.
Bahrooz Jaafar, Kurdish researcher and journalist, holding PhD in international political economy at Cyprus International University- Nicosia. Founder and head of Mediterranean Institute for Regional Studies.