The East Mediterranean Triangle at Crossroads

Jean-Loup Samaan

• Publisher: Perennial Press
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781531264901
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: 21st Century History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The alliance system in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea has significantly evolved over the last years. The rift between Israel and Turkey since 2009 led to new strategic developments. In particular, Israeli-Greek ties have grown in earnest. Authorities in Israel and Greece have signed various trade as well as security cooperation agreements. Furthermore, the discovery of natural gas reserves in the southeastern Mediterranean has prompted cooperation between Israel, Cyprus, and Greece. This Israel-Greece-Cyprus initiative has logically triggered strong opposition from Turkey, which does not recognize the government in Nicosia and objects to the claims of the Greek Cypriot Administration over the gas reserves in the south of the island. Ankara responded by conducting air and sea military drills close to the area of the planned project, and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu threatened that Turkey would take appropriate measures if the three countries were to go on with the project.

THE UNRAVELLING OF THE TRIANGLE

BY THE END OF 2001, with the second Intifada erupting, the election of Ariel Sharon in Israel and the 9/11 attacks in the United States had caused the hopes of a peace process in the Middle East to all but disappear. On November 3, 2002, the Justice and Development Party (in Turkish dalet ve Kalkınma Partisi abbreviated AKP) won the general elections in Turkey and its leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was nominated Prime Minister. Created only a year before the election, AKP was in itself a revolution in Turkish politics. Although its foundations were to be found in Islamism, it claimed to be a center-right wing formation that would not challenge the country’s traditional secularism. Erdoğan’s rhetoric combined conservatism and liberalism and his followers presented themselves as “conservative democrats.”23 Although the Israelis were initially worried that the AKP challenged the basis of the bilateral relations, the new government in Ankara did not do so in its first years. The military cooperation continued, the trade kept rising, and Erdoğan...

Table of contents

• SUMMARY
• INTRODUCTION
• THE MODERN EMERGENCE OF THE EAST MEDITERRANEAN TRIANGLE
• THE UNRAVELLING OF THE TRIANGLE
• THE RAMIFICATIONS OF THE CURRENT CRISIS
• IMPLICATIONS FOR THE UNITED STATES
• ENDNOTES