“Under the direction of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey has adopted an increasingly assertive response to being excluded from regional efforts to exploit the area’s gas resources, which are subject to claims from at least eight countries ranging from Libya to Egypt and Israel,” the Financial Times reported on Sunday.
Under the title “Turkey fuels regional power game over Mediterranean gas reserves”, the British Financial Times newspaper published a report in which it confirmed that the Turkish intervention in the Eastern Mediterranean region, is possibly threatening billions of dollars of investment as countries seek to boost their energy security.
The report indicated that the region has the potential “to become one of the last great fossil fuel plays — with bountiful gas to supply energy-poor countries around the basin, with enough left over to export,” as the discovery of huge natural gas deposits in the past 10 years has created the potential to transform energy supplies in the region and forge alliances between countries that might once have seemed unthinkable.
“Turkey — excluded due to its fraught relations with many of the other players in the region — could stymie those ambitions,” it said, pointing out that the Turkish President Edrdogan has responded to being left out of his neighbours’ co-operation “by sending the Turkish navy to intimidate drill ships belonging to international oil companies and dispatching his own exploration vessels.”
The report noted that Turkey has expanded its military presence in Libya this year, after signing an agreement with the Government of National Accord (GNA), headed by Fayez Al-Sarraj “that could enable Ankara to drill for oil and gas off the Libyan coast,” pointing out that this deal has drawn Ankara deeper into the conflict in the country but winning it a rare ally in its hydrocarbons battle.
“Turkey’s open intervention into the North African Opec member’s conflict has put it at risk of a direct confrontation with Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Russia, which back a renegade Libyan general fighting the Tripoli-based administration,” the report added, noting that Turkey had already been deepening its involvement in the Libyan civil war, sending military support to the embattled government in Tripoli.
The British report also stated that Ankara has a series of overlapping political, geopolitical and business interests in Libya, and that gas is also critical.
After Ankara signed an agreement with the GNA that delineated new maritime boundaries between them, Erdogan reinforced his backing for the administration in Tripoli, sending more military equipment and advisers as well as several thousand Syrian mercenaries who fought under Turkey’s aegis in Syria.
The UAE added its voice in May to a joint declaration with Cyprus, Greece, Egypt and France condemning Turkey’s regional policies, accusing it of illegal activities in the Eastern Mediterranean and of seeking to undermine regional stability through its actions in Libya, which Turkey responded by accusing the group of seeking to form an “alliance of evil” against it.