Turkey sets course against the West in the Mediterranean
Turkey’s ambitions to assert itself as a Middle East power are currently in evidence across the western part of the region.
Ankara occupies a chunk of northwest Syria. Its troops are currently massing on the border of Syria further east. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened that his troops may arrive “suddenly in one night,” unless the US-supported Syrian Democratic Forces concedes to the establishment of a Turkish-maintained “safe zone” 30 km. into Syria and along the breadth of the border.
Turkish forces are also present in northern Iraq, where they are engaged in action against the PKK presence in the Kurdish-controlled north.
In addition, Turkey offers active support to the Muslim Brotherhood-associated government in Libya, supplying drones to Tripoli in violation of a UN embargo in place since 2011.
And, of course, Ankara supports the Hamas regime in Gaza. The Palestinian Islamist movement maintains an active office in Istanbul that according to recent defector Sohaib Hassan Yousif, “operates security and military operations on Turkish soil under the cover of civil society.”
Turkey’s efforts to build influence in Jerusalem by way of the activity of government-linked aid agencies such as the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency are also a matter of public record.
TURKEY’S EFFORTS at building influence and power in the neighborhood are not restricted to dry land. Rather, an important currently developing arena for Turkish assertiveness is the eastern Mediterranean.
This area has been the site of major gas discoveries in Israeli, Cypriot and Egyptian waters in recent years. Lebanon, too, is seeking to begin exploration in its territorial waters. The current challenge facing countries that have enjoyed major discoveries is creating the infrastructure for export of natural gas to Europe and further afield.
Turkey has not discovered major gas reserves. It has not been invited to join the East Mediterranean Gas Forum, the newly formed body intended to coordinate efforts to develop gas resources and mechanisms for export to international markets. Egypt, Cyprus, Greece, Israel, Italy, the Palestinian territories and Jordan are members of this forum.
As Turkey moves further from the West and closer to alliance with Russia, it is emerging as an aggressive and disruptive force with regard to gas development in the eastern Mediterranean. The main area of current concern is regarding Cyprus – Israel, Egypt and Lebanon have all signed delimitation agreements with Nicosia. Turkey refuses to do so.
Ankara is adopting its own interpretation of international law with regard to defining ownership of energy resources. According to the Turkish view, the waters adjacent to Cyprus constitute part of Turkey’s own continental shelf, and as such Ankara has
the right to explore and to drill for gas within them.
Ankara further contends that the Cypriots have no right to drill for gas without first reaching an agreement with the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The latter entity was established by Turkish arms in 1974, and is recognized by no country other than Turkey itself.
Erdogan summed up the Turkish position in a recent speech at a naval command center in Istanbul, quoted by the Al-Monitor news website: “We will not allow moves aimed at usurping the eastern Mediterranean’s natural resources to the exclusion of our country and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Just as we taught a lesson to the terrorists in Syria, we will not cede ground to the bandits in the sea.” (The latter reference is to the Turkish military operation against Kurdish areas of northern Syria in 2016 and 2018.)
Turkey dispatched gunboats last year to drive off an attempt by the Italian energy company ENI to commence drilling close to the Cyprus shore in agreement with the Cypriot government. ENI subsequently abandoned its plans.
In May, Turkey held its largest-ever naval exercise in the Mediterranean, Operation Seawolf, involving more than 130 warships.
At present, two Turkish ships are engaged in drilling close to the shores of Cyprus. The Fatih is drilling about 50 miles off the western coast of the island. It claims to have struck gas reserves of up to 170 billion cubic meters in the waters off Paphos two weeks ago. A second ship, the Yavuz, meanwhile, has begun drilling close to the Karpas Peninsula northeast of Cyprus, its concession granted by the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The ships and their support vessels were escorted by a Turkish naval frigate.
Cyprus possesses no navy, and hence is militarily helpless in the face of Turkey’s actions. It is seeking to respond through diplomacy. The European Union has criticized Turkey’s moves, and threatened sanctions.
Rather than rely on European promises, however, Cyprus is developing its relations with local powers similarly concerned at Turkey’s transformation into an aggressive and irredentist power. Since 2010, Greece, Cyprus and Israel have held six tripartite summits. The latest took place on March 21, when the three countries signed a declaration pledging to increase cooperation, support energy independence and security, and defend against destabilization. The issue of gas discoveries underlies the growing ties among the three.
It remains to be seen how far Turkey will push its attempts to disrupt the process of gas exploration in the east Mediterranean. At present, Ankara’s efforts are limited to the Cypriot context. Turkey is not trying to interfere with the process further south. So the future direction of events is likely to depend on the extent of Turkish ambitions.
TURKISH ANALYST Amberin Zaman noted the broader regional context in an article in Al-Monitor focusing on this issue:
“Turkish muscle-flexing goes beyond Cyprus and needs to be understood in the broader arc of Turkey’s efforts to renegotiate its relations with the West and its neighbors so as to reflect the influence it feels it deserves.”
It is all a far cry from the late 1990s, when Israel welcomed the Turkish Navy’s ships to Haifa Port. Their arrival for the first Israeli-Turkish joint naval exercise in 1998 was seen as the harbinger of a possible new strategic alliance. The rise of Erdogan and political Islam in Turkey ended all such hopes.
Turkey’s leaders today describe themselves frankly as enemies of Israel. They appear to have set a course toward a broader orientation of hostility to the West. The eastern Mediterranean looks to be one of the arenas in which that course will be followed.
The writer is director of the Middle East Center for Reporting and Analysis, and is a research fellow at the Middle East Forum and at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security. •