The Mediterranean is on fire!

Beglitis holds crucial meetings

 

Ancara seems to have adopted a certain rhetoric which opens a period of tension. The Turkish government is threatening to use even military power in order to cancel Cyprus’ decision to start the drilling of natural gas. Egemen Bagis, the vice-president of the Turkish government has said his country is ready to send even its navy so as to block Cyprus’ plans, statements which Athens characterized as threatening.

At the moment, this is a very unsatisfying development which is also causing concerns because of the latest breach the Turkish-Israeli relations have reached as all drills will be co-funded by American and Israeli companies.

To Turkey, the fact that Athens and Tel Aviv decided to reinforce their military cooperation is a very upsetting factor. Moreover, on Sunday the Greek Defence minister Panos Beglitis will visit Israel and have talks with his Israeli counterpart Ehud Barak and other high officials of the country. He is expected to sign military deals and discuss the final details before Athens buys the “Spice” missiles. As well, Beglitis and Barak will finalize the common air force exercise programme of the next six months.

The present juncture of the sudden betterment of the Greek-Israeli relations has not gone unnoticed let alone the fact that on the day the Greek minister will be visiting Israel, the Israeli ambassador to Ancara will be heading home after Turkey decided to downgrade its diplomatic relations with the country.  

For now, Washington and Moscow vow to stay on the Cyprus side fully supportive of the island government’s decisions to move forward with the drillings while, at the same time, nobody can say if Turkey wishes to become totally autonomous and ignore recommendations coming from the American and the Russian sides.

According to Proto Thema newspaper information, a Turkish searching boat is in the area between the Greek islands of Kos and Rhodes right now, looking for natural gas, but for the moment it sails inside Turkish territorial waters.

What interests specialists the most is whether Turkey will try to create a diversion in order to stop or at least suspend the drilling.

The Greek ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a statement saying that the neighbouring country is behaving in a very concerning way which could lead to the destabilization of the area in the east of the Mediterranean Sea.

On this occasion, the Greek Foreign Affairs ministry is as well underlining the fact that Cyprus is free and entitled to exploit its natural wealth in accordance with the International Law.