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here was an expectation- and still there is- about possible coordination and dialogue among regional actors of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) especially after the Trump Administration announced Gaza Peace Deal. This expectation is relying on probability of rise of a new balance of power-based order in the region. The regional states have had hopes to take some concrete steps related to functional, normative and institutional sides of this newly establishing order.  Ankara may be one of the most eager regional actors in this regard. Türkiye wants to institutionalize its bargaining power and influence in this new regional diplomacy-first atmosphere. That is not surprising if one reminds that Ankara prioritized normalization and improvement in bilateral relations in MENA – especially within the period 2021-2023, till October 7 attacks and Gaze War.

Back to Polarization?

However, these expectations have not fully realized so far. There are still many unresolved conflicts and uncertainties in the MENA region. Meanwhile Eastern Mediterranean geopolitics is giving signals of back to the future, back to the atmosphere of polarization that was dominant feature of the region in the period of 2017-2021. Recently there are many minor and major developments strengthening this tension. Some of these developments may not have the objective of fueling polarization in the region, but consequently they contribute to increase strategic competition in the Eastern Mediterranean. Two examples easily come to mind: The first one is signing of an agreement, that limits Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) of the Greek Cypriot Administration and Lebanon in November 2025.

The second example is Israeli’s approval of Egypt export gas deal in December 2025. While these agreements may seem like functional collaborations for Lebanon and Egypt, which are currently experiencing political uncertainty and economic vulnerabilities, these deals also strengthen the positions of the Greek Cypriot Administration and Israel in the Eastern Mediterranean, demonstrating that South Nicosia and Tel Aviv have a kind of actorness in the region. These deals were used by Tel Aviv and South Nicosia to give certain messages to the other regional players, including Ankara. On the one hand South Nicosia wants to show that it may continue to ignore rights of Turkish Cypriots and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).

On the other hand, Israel wants to prove that Tel Aviv can find partners in the region even if the Palestinian issue remained unresolved. However, these messages might have been weakly voiced if not for another obvious development: the triparty strategic rapprochement among Israel, the Greek Cypriots and Greece. At the end of 2025 Athens, Tel Aviv and South Nicosia not only deepened their defense and security ties but also did everything to make it visible for other regional actors including Ankara.

What does the trio want to achieve?

The rapprochement between South Nicosia, Tel Aviv, and Athens in the Eastern Mediterranean is not new. In the early 2000s, the discovery of natural gas in the region brought the three capitals into dialogue about potential East-West gas trade. However, this dialogue was never confined to the intended functional framework and failed to trigger regional stability and cooperation. Therefore, the Obama administration’s attempts to promote intercommunity reconciliation and cooperation in Cyprus issue through “imaginary pipelines” became unsuccessful. While the dream of Eastern Mediterranean gas bonanza returned to be a fantasy rather than a reality, the triparty ties have evolved into strategic partnership aims to constrain and marginalize Türkiye — albeit not explicitly — by exploiting existing fault lines and disagreements in the MENA region following the Arab Spring.

After 2015 the U.S. was uneasy with Russia’s presence in the Eastern Mediterranean and hence Washington was also partially drawn into this three-party re-alignment to constrain Russian posture in the region. Greece and the Greek Cypriots are the member of the EU. Between 2017 and 2021 some of the EU members wanted to increase their influence in the Eastern Mediterranean by supporting Athens’ and South Nicosia’s posture there. These European actors also misinterpreted what is happening in Libya, Lebanon and Syria. As a result, Türkiye felt that Ankara was facing with multiple challenges and the trio- supported by Washington and by some European capitals- tried to restrain Ankara’s hand in the region.

However, this regional context has gradually changed after 2021. Washington also revised its priorities in the Eastern Mediterranean and the U.S. concluded that exclusionary, polarizing alignments were unsuccessful in limiting Türkiye’s influence. Besides, Washington did not want to lose Ankara as a potential partner in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Between 2017-2021, Ankara succeeded to strengthen its strategic and diplomatic presence in Syria, Libya, and the TRNC by increasing its civil-military maritime assets in the neighboring seas. Observing the realities on the ground Biden Administration decided to withdraw its support from the East-Med natural gas pipeline project. That means the East-West natural gas trade through this tripartite alignment failed as well by 2021.

Polarization logic has slowly changed

Although the strategic environment based on polarization logic has slowly changed after 2021, this high-tension period between 2017 and 2021 revealed two facts related to the strategic game in the region. First, the Greek Cypriots and Greece can take, and indeed took, the advantage of the above-mentioned polarization to procure new weapon systems from various sources, primarily Israel and the United States. That has led revival of arm race/security dilemma logic in the Eastern Mediterranean and Aegean Sea region. Washington was well aware of risks of security trap in the region among Athens, South Nicosia and Ankara but the U.S. also calculated the potential of constraining Russia.

It is a well-known fact that Washington can more easily support its Trans-Atlantic/European allies, like Greece and South Cyprus by arm procurement than others since the U.S. has upper-hand over NATO. As a result, the U.S. ignored Ankara’s and North Cyprus’ protests and decided to arm both Athens and South Nicosia – which endangers the delicate balance between Türkiye and Greece, as well as Turkish and Greek Cypriots on Cyprus. Meanwhile, Israel viewed Greece and Greek Cypriots as useful components of its revitalized Peripheral Doctrine. One of the major aims of this new Peripheral Doctrine is increasing Israel’s strategic depth without direct conventional deployment around Tel Aviv’s rivals, particularly Ankara. Therefore, Türkiye would face costs for its increasing presence in areas important to Israel.

Secondly, the 2017-2021 period proves that Western actors, both the U.S. and Europeans, prioritize area control within the framework of East-West connectivity – assumed to be provided by Greece-Greek Cypriot-Israel connection. However, it soon became clear that, to achieve full control or area denial capacity, all Western/U.S. allies (including those in the Gulf, Egypt, and Türkiye) needed to be part of the East-West connectivity, or at least they do not challenge the way of this connection. This explains why both the Biden and first Trump administrations worked on different formulas especially to attach the Gulf monarchies and Türkiye to the Europe-Israel/ West-East connection. The Biden Administration encouraged normalization agreements among the players, Trump Administrations suggested different versions of Abraham Accords.

What’s new in Greek-Greek Cypriot- Israeli quasi alliance in 2025?

Today’s three-party rapprochement can be seen as an extension of above-mentioned competitive logic. Therefore, it is also part of the process of creating perception that Ankara’s influence in the Eastern Mediterranean can be restrained by a rival bloc although the parties claim that this triparty cooperation is not against any other external actor. Accordingly, there are three elements in this renewed re-alignment: The first element is the deepening of security and defense cooperation between these three countries, though this cooperation does not include a joint defense guarantee or pledge. The second element is the establishment of mutual interoperability in the fields of defense and security. The third element is the rearmament of Greece and the Southern Cypriots by Israel that emerges as the main security provider. These three elements form the backbone of this renewed alignment among Athens, South Nicosia and Tel Aviv.

Within this context, recently, the South Cypriots acquired Barak air defense system from Israel. Meanwhile, Greek Foreign Minister Dendias claimed that Ankara’s progress, particularly in the field of UAVs/UCAVs, poses a threat to Greece. Dendias also stated that they would strengthen air defense in the Aegean Sea and deploy missile and anti-aircraft systems — some of which are expected to be procured from Israel— to the Aegean Islands. Leaders from three countries met in Jerusalem at the end of December, and they applauded Netanyahu’s words: “We will defend the area against those who want to rebuild their empire.” Considering that Athens and South Nicosia are part of Western institutions, this gathering, while not reflecting a common Western view, is a performance reflecting the desire of actors to use a hypothetical expansionism as a convenient excuse for Israel’s current expansionism.

Therefore, Jerusalem summit among Greek, Israeli and Greek Cypriot leaders was not just a realist act of balancing. It was a tacit support of two Western/European capitals to Israel’s policies in Gaza and West Bank- including war crimes. Hence, Athens, South Nicosia and Tel Aviv could find each other as available partners in micro-state strategy but because of shadow of war crimes and atrocities committed by Israel in Gaza, the cost of this reproachment for the Western actors will likely be greater than just triggering security dilemma between the trio and Ankara.

Without doubt, by this alignment Israel, Greece and Greek Cypriots attempt to provoke Ankara. By poking Türkiye unnecessarily, these three capitals, not only test the limits of Ankara’s reaction but also try to push Türkiye to make strategic mistakes. This strategy is an unreasonable strategy because it will not help western desire to have access and control on East-West as well as South-North (Eastern Mediterranean-Caspian) connectivity.

All in all, the atmosphere in the Eastern Mediterranean has turned from moderate hopes to polarization very quickly. This shift may be expected but the pace of this shift is still surprising. Therefore, one should ask, why this shift is happening now?

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evelopments in the Aegean Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean, which surround Turkey’s 4,000-kilometer coastline and over which Turkey has sovereign rights, are of great importance to Turkey. In light of recent developments in the Aegean Sea and Eastern Mediterranean, predictions of possible developments in 2024 are also important in this regard. In the recent past, Turkey has shown a determined attitude in defending its sovereign rights in the seas and airspace of these two important regions.

In the Aegean Sea, Turkey has maintained its stance against Greece’s expansion of its territorial waters and the arming of the Eastern Aegean islands, as well as its legal position on the delimitation of the continental shelf. In the Eastern Mediterranean, Turkey has continued its actions to protect its continental shelf rights and to protect the rights of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). At the same time, Turkey has sought to improve its bilateral relations with Greece, Egypt, and Israel. As a result, local tensions stemming from fundamental problems in both the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean have decreased significantly.

This analysis will focus on whether there are threats to this positive trend in 2024, especially after Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza that began in early October 2023 and possible Turkish positions vis-à-vis such threats.

Turkey’s Approach to the Aegean Problems in the Recent Past

The deterioration of relations between Turkey and Greece, especially since 2016, has led to serious tensions over existing core issues in the Aegean. Issues such as the arming of the Eastern Aegean islands and Greece’s national airspace have led to concrete frictions. In early 2021, consultative talks between the two countries resumed, but they were broken off after only three rounds. Greece’s efforts to persuade the U.S. to take a position against Turkey led to the suspension of all talks, including high-level ones.

However, both countries are aware of the fact that even if bilateral problems cannot be solved, as neighbors, it is necessary to ensure that bilateral relations remain good. Even at the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, on July 11-12, 2023, President Erdoğan and Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis met and agreed to activate several channels of communication between the two countries and to initiate a High-Level Cooperation Council at the level of heads of state or ministers.

Another positive development is the economic diplomacy initiatives, or “Positive Agenda” meetings, which started in April 2021 with an agreement between Foreign Ministers Çavuşoğlu and Dendias in Ankara. These initiatives made progress after the disasters experienced by both countries and paved the way for new areas of cooperation in the economic context. An important step in this positive process was the visit of Greek Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis to Turkey on September 5, 2023. During the visit, a meeting was held with Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Ankara.

Finally, President Erdoğan’s visit to Athens on December 7, 2023 marked the first meeting of the Turkey-Greece High-Level Cooperation Council in almost seven years since its inception in 2010. The fourth meeting of the Turkey-Greece High-Level Cooperation Council was last held in Izmir on March 8, 2016.

During his visit to Athens, President Erdoğan met with Greek President Sakelaropoulou and Prime Minister Mitsotakis. The official statements following the talks indicate that, as expected, mainly Positive Agenda items were discussed and progress was made. At the end of the talks, the “Athens Declaration on Friendly Relations and Good Neighborliness between Turkey and Greece” was issued. Some concrete decisions were also announced within the framework of the understanding stated in the Athens Declaration. Accordingly, the parties agreed to hold “continuous, constructive and meaningful” consultations on the basis of the specified “pillars.”

Another important stated intention was to continue “confidence-building measures,” including military measures, which would contribute to the elimination of unwarranted sources of tension and related risks. The parties undertook to refrain from any declaration, initiative, or action that would undermine this declaration or jeopardize the maintenance of peace and stability in their region.

Aegean Forecasts for 2024

Turkey’s position on sovereignty issues in the Aegean Sea will continue with the same determination. Indicative of this was Foreign Minister Fidan’s statement that Turkey’s rights in the Aegean Sea and the rights of the Turkish Muslim minority in Western Thrace and the Dodecanese Islands will be protected. It is clear from the official statements made before President Erdoğan’s visit to Athens that there was a “sovereignty issues are not up for discussion” approach on the Greek side. This essentially meant that the core issues could not be the subject of negotiations.

However, the main objective at this stage will be to maintain the moderate atmosphere in relations and strengthen the positive agenda. As President Erdoğan has stated, Turkey wants to conduct a process in which both sides will win. Although it was stated that the Athens Declaration would not be a binding international agreement for the parties in accordance with international law, the commitment to continue dialogue, good relations, and cooperation was expressed by stating that the letter of the document should not be violated.

There are some important expectations for the next period. The first is that the good atmosphere created between the two countries at the beginning of 2023 will now be transformed into a system of bilateral cooperation, and that the political dialogue and cooperation mechanisms will continue. As stated in the Athens Declaration, the parties are expected to avoid statements and attitudes that would complicate this process, and, even beyond that, to take steps to strengthen the process. The most important aspect of this process is that third parties, such as the U.S. and the EU, should not be allowed to undermine it.

The second expectation is to resume the process of consultative talks in order to resolve the main issues that cause tension between the two countries. The question of when it would be appropriate to start this process can be evaluated separately; however, in order to achieve results, it is important that the process start at a stage that is free from elements that could disrupt or stop it again.

President Erdoğan’s proposal, just before his visit to Athens, that “not only the delimitation of the continental shelf, but all Aegean problems should be taken to the International Court of Justice” is of great importance. This proposal both negates Turkey’s allegations that it “does not abide by the law” and forces Greece to change its “single problem” approach that blocks the solution of the problems. President Erdoğan’s approach is expected to have important repercussions in the context of the solution of fundamental problems in the future.

Recently, Turkey has taken a harsh stance against Israel’s attacks on Gaza, which have been ongoing for the past two months. On the other hand, most EU countries, including Greece, and the U.S. have taken almost the opposite stance and supported Israel, creating an anti-Turkey atmosphere which has the potential to have an impact on Turkey-Greece relations as well.

Meanwhile, Greece’s skeptical and exaggerated “fear of Turkey” persists. Even a routine statement by Foreign Minister Fidan that Turkey’s rights in the Aegean Sea and the rights of the Turkish Muslim minority in Western Thrace and the Dodecanese Islands will be protected was presented as a matter of concern in the Greek press. In the coming period, such situations threaten to have a negative impact on bilateral relations, which have been progressing with a positive agenda.

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here have been remarkable developments in Turkey-Egypt relations, particularly since the beginning of 2021. The diplomacy and dialogue mechanisms of the bilateral relations between the two countries have quite a variety of variables and dimensions. In this context, despite the conflicting foreign policy priorities of both parties, the relations between Ankara and Cairo, which have a deep-rooted common history from a political, economic, and cultural perspective, progress in a balanced manner.

The exploratory talks held in May and September of 2021 played a major role in the formation of such a balance. The diplomatic contacts between the two countries, which began at the level of deputy ministers, had a symbolic value in terms of normalizing the relations that had been reduced to a minimum since 2013. The contacts, however, did not aim to achieve a final result in the short term.

Contrary to expectations, decisive steps were taken towards the solution of many problematic issues of the agenda of the two countries during this process, and the two parties achieved significant momentum. However, the parties’ divergent stances regarding Libya and the Eastern Mediterranean slowed down the normalization steps, and brought the relations back to a tense atmosphere. In this tense atmosphere, the handshake between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi, despite all the existing differences, at the opening ceremony of the World Cup held in Qatar in 2022, has raised hopes, once again, for a dialogue on normalization.

Libya and Turkey-Egypt bilateral relations

Turkey and Egypt closely followed the chain of events taking place in Libya after Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown as a result of the popular movement that started in 2011. The fragile nature of the local political dynamics and the ever-changing system of alliances in Libya have placed the two countries in opposite camps in the post-2014 regional competition. In 2019, the coup attempt by Khalifa Haftar, the leader of the eastern militia forces, against the capital Tripoli and the events that followed, led to the political rivalry between Ankara and Cairo over Libya to break out.

The Turkey-Libya Maritime Boundary Delimitation and Defense Cooperation Agreement signed between Ankara and the then Government of National Accord (GNA) of Libya translated into a close coordination and collaboration between Turkey and the internationally recognized and legitimate political leadership in Tripoli. One of the main reasons of Ankara’s increasing engagement with the political processes in Libya was to help defend Turkey’s national interests with regard to the competition in the Eastern Mediterranean.

As Turkey considered insecurity vis-à-vis its interests in Libya and the Mediterranean, it followed a more proactive and determined political approach. On the other hand, the possible takeover of the country’s administration by Haftar, who has a long record of numerous human rights violations and war crimes, was interpreted as a strong threat by decision-makers at the time. At this point, among the reasons that forced Turkey to act was the demographic, social, and economic damage that could have been caused not only in Libya but in the region and the world at large by the potential mass migration waves that could start due to possible violence against civilians.

At the same time, Egypt, due to its wide borders with eastern Libya, remained indifferent to the formation and development of a homogeneous security apparatus in the Cyrenaica region, the so-called Libyan National Army (LNA) affiliated to Khalifa Haftar, and affiliated itself politically with Aguila Saleh, the head of the Tobruk-based parliament and the related political structure. Egypt’s desire to have an influence in the political developments in Libya is another reason for the Sisi administration’s engagement with political figures, armed groups, and tribes in the eastern region.

Egypt has strong commercial and economic relations with Libya. For years, the remittances brought into the country by Egyptians working in Libya were an important source of income for the Egyptian economy. In addition to security-based, political, and economic parameters, the regional alliance of which Egypt was a party pushed Cairo to implement more aggressive policies in Libya and the Eastern Mediterranean. The alliance with Greece and the Greek Cypriot Administration (GCA) made Egypt participate in regional formations with weak feasibility from the perspective of international law that undermined its possible gains in the Eastern Mediterranean with the conclusion of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) agreements.

Within this framework, following the signing of the hydrocarbon agreement between Turkey and the National Unity Government (MBH) in October, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry announced that Cairo had suspended normalization talks due to Turkey’s stance on Libya. This agreement, which was crafted as an extension of the Maritime Deal dated November 27, 2019, is based on the principle of cooperation and benefit in maximizing the national interests of both Turkey and Libya, and it would be wrong to interpret it as a warning to Egypt.

On the contrary, the agreement reveals the possible gains that Egypt could garner in case of cooperation. As Turkish authorities have been asserting, since the start of the normalization negotiations, Egypt reaching an agreement on the maritime border could give it an area of 11,500 square kilometers. On the other hand, despite Egypt’s harsh reaction to the agreement, Turkey’s moderate approach still shows its determination and desire for normalizing ties.

Is renormalization possible?

The ongoing crisis between Turkey and Egypt was moved to the back burner after the leaders of the two countries shook hands at the opening ceremony of the World Cup held in Qatar in December 2022. Indeed, the picture that shows President Erdoğan and President Sisi shaking hands for the first time is not a sufficient indication on its own of the resumption of normalization talks. Due to its weight both in Libya and in the African continent, Egypt is an important factor for Turkey’s new foreign policy based on normalizing ties, which started with the Gulf countries, gained momentum with Egypt, and continued with Israel. However, success in diplomacy necessitates the willingness of both actors, and depends on strong communication channels and negotiations.

Some of the indicators suggest that Egypt has not fully demonstrated such determination. One recent example of such an action was the decree issued by President Sisi on December 20 in which the Cairo administration unilaterally determined the Western borders of Egypt with Libya, including the EEZ. It is argued that while this decision targets the hydrocarbon agreement that Turkey signed with Libya, it also shows that Egypt has no intention of making any concessions on the Libyan issue.

The decree was also not welcomed by the internationally recognized government of Libya. The Libyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that with the unilateral declaration of the said borders, the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Libya were targeted, and the decree violated the principle of goodwill. Ankara’s reaction, on the other hand, came in parallel with its past balanced stance. In a statement made by Turkey, Libya and Egypt were invited to initiate dialogue and negotiations as soon as possible to determine the borders between the two countries in accordance with international law.

In sum, despite strong signs of normalization between Turkish and Egyptian political leaders, the challenges of the past are still relevant and threaten the prospect of normalization. However, it is important to protect the communication channels by keeping the existing problematic issues at a minimum level. In this sense, it is not difficult to see that Turkey exhibits a more rational and moderate approach to bilateral relations compared to Egypt.

Cooperation with Turkey in the region in the fields of political, economic, and security relations could bring important gains for Egypt, which is struggling with various internal and external problems. Accordingly, in addition to Egypt’s preferences in Libya and the Eastern Mediterranean, the political tone of the Sisi administration, will largely determine whether renormalization in bilateral relations will be possible.

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lexandroupolis is a port city in Greece, known as “Dedeağaç” in Turkish. Back in the nineteenth century, this small town was located on the transportation and trade routes of the Ottoman Empire. Under the Greek administration, Alexandroupolis, which lies in the north easternmost part of the country, did not make a breakthrough for about a century. However, due to the developments in the energy sector and the changing security perceptions in the West, today, the city is emerging as a vibrant hub.

Energy transmission capacity

Alexandroupolis brings together a highway, railway, and airport network stretching from the Aegean Sea to the Black Sea. The highway and railway are directly connected to the port, and  Alexandroupolis is also the connection point of TAP and TANAP, two major pipelines of the Southern Gas Corridor.

More recently, the Alexandroupolis Independent Natural Gas System (INGS), which includes both LNG storage with a capacity of 170,000 m3 and a regasification unit with a capacity of 5.5 billion m3, was constructed. The Alexandroupolis Floating Storage and Regasification Unit (FSRU) will be stationed 17.6 km southwest of Alexandroupolis at a depth of 40 m in the Thracian Sea.

The energy brought from the FSRU will be transmitted to the National Natural Gas System (NNGS) and distributed to consumers in Greece via power plants being built across Western Thrace. North Macedonia- and Bulgaria-linked companies are making investments to carry the energy via interconnectors to their own countries.

With the LNG terminal, planned to be built by the end of 2023, the Alexandroupolis port has the potential to become an energy hub. A plan to expand its capacity has been prepared by the port authority with the support of the Greek government. This includes a new electric rail line connecting the port to the Trans-European railway, the addition of much more quay space, a new cargo terminal, an additional 500-meter pier, and a bypass to the local highway.

Greece will make significant economic gains not only from the port and FSRU, but also from carrying the LNG as it holds more than 22% of the global LNG carrying capacity. With an interconnector extended into Bulgaria from TAP’s processing facilities in Komotini, and another from Sofia to Niš, gas will be transferred into Bulgaria and Serbia. Thus, a non-Russian gas option will be born in the region.

Greece’s Alexandroupolis policies

Alexandroupolis’s potential for the transmission of energy is strongly linked with Greece’s policies to be the key country in Europe’s energy security. To this end, Greece strengthens its diplomatic ties with both energy-exporting Gulf countries and importing European countries.

The Greek authorities’ rhetoric reveals that Greece aims to compete with Turkey’s role as an energy hub. At a recent meeting, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman signed important agreements on energy. Prince Salman stated that Saudi Arabia is interested in hydrogen energy and making Greece a hub for hydrogen energy in Europe.

In his statement after the agreements with Saudi Arabia, the Greek Minister of Development and Investments Adonis Georgiadis claimed that Greece has very close strategic relations with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel, and added, “What a great foreign policy the Turks have had for all these years, the opposite is happening now. Turkey is completely isolated and the biggest player in the region is undoubtedly Saudi Arabia, with which Greece has the strategic relationship I mentioned above.” Such developments are not only limited to Saudi Arabia.

As soon as Turkey and Israel declared that they were going to normalize diplomatic ties and reappoint ambassadors, Mitsotakis paid a visit to Qatar which is considered a geopolitical ally of Turkey. In the meeting, Mitsotakis, by pointing out that Qatar is a natural gas producer, mentioned the importance of Greece, especially Alexandroupolis, in energy transportation. More recently, President of the United Arab Emirates Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed met Mitsotakis as part of his visit to Athens. In the meeting, Mitsotakis briefed Zayed on the infrastructure facilities being built in Greece for LNG import, storage, and regasification. He claimed that these efforts, combined with Greece’s strategic geographical location, make the country an energy hub for the Middle East and a bridge connecting the East to Europe.

U.S. interest in Alexandroupolis

Alexandroupolis saw several development projects worth 2.3 million euros in order to reach the capacity to serve Arleigh Burke-class U.S. destroyers. In the context of NATO and U.S. military shipments, numerous military vehicles were delivered through the port. These include Black Hawk, Apache, Sikorsky, Chinook, and Romeo helicopters, and M1 Abrams tanks. Only in the summer of 2022, 2,400 pieces of military equipment passed through the port, making this the largest number of U.S. weapons ever to pass through a single port.

Numerous other mechanized units were reported to have been sent to the port, some of which were then sent to the islands that Turkey claims should be demilitarized. In the first stage, the claimed intention by Greece and the U.S. was to transfer them to Ukraine. In addition to arms transfers, in the context of Operation Atlantic Resolve, the U.S. Army 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team with 4,000 soldiers and 2,000 pieces of equipment deployed in the region. U.S. jets were sent to Alexandroupolis to replace those is Larissa.

Moving beyond NATO, in 2019, the U.S. provided funds for the dislodging of a sunken dredger ship from the port basin. This provided access to the full capacity of the port and opened the possibility of serving large vessels. In the same year, Greece and U.S. signed a protocol which extended the scope of the 1990 Greece-U.S. Defense Cooperation Agreement and provided the United States access to the Alexandroupolis port.

In 2020, the U.S. Congress released funds for the installation of precision approach radars (maritime domain awareness) throughout the Aegean Sea. Consequently, Alexandroupolis came to the agenda in terms of Greece-U.S. cooperation before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, the Russian-Ukrainian war accelerated the port’s development attempts and provided a legitimate explanation for the policies being carried out in the port.

On the other hand, the privatization of the Alexandroupolis port is on the agenda, and two of the four candidates planned to participate in the tender have ties to Russia. Considering that the Port of Piraeus is operated by a Chinese state-owned company and the Port of Thessaloniki is operated by Russia-backed companies, Greece maintains its relations with non-Western powers too. Knowing the U.S. and European sensitivity toward Alexandroupolis, Greece may use these two candidates as a trump card to obtain potential U.S. or European aid under the excuse of aligning foreign policy objectives.

Fruits of lobbying

Greece’s initiatives in Alexandroupolis are supported by the Greek, Armenian, and Jewish lobbies in the United States. A report published by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) focuses on Greece, particularly Alexandroupolis, in all seven solutions it proposes for resolving the energy crisis created by the Russia-Ukraine war. The report emphasizes the importance of solidarity between the Greek Administration of Southern Cyprus (GASC), Israel, Egypt, and Greece. In this context, the report calls for the U.S. to take the financial and diplomatic leadership in the axis of the Three Sea Initiatives to develop the railway and road infrastructure of Alexandroupolis and increase defense aid to Greece. In the report, there is no mention of Turkey, NATO’s easternmost corner.

Moreover, in an interview with the Greek daily Kathimerini, Jonathan Rue, director of foreign policy at JINSA, explained his perspective with the statement that Turkey has deliberately abandoned its traditional role as NATO’s southeast anchor against Russia and other threats and that Alexandroupolis, bypassing the Turkish Straits, became an important alternative to Turkey in securing a position for the NATO forces in the region.

Meanwhile, Greek lobbying efforts appear to have borne fruit as witnessed in the statements of Bob Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who recently paid a visit to Alexandroupolis and gave a statement claiming that the port has unlimited possibilities for Greece and its allies. He also claimed that Turkey, a NATO member, is the biggest threat in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Ever since the Greek Cypriot Administration (GCA) signed an agreement with Egypt in 2003 on the delimitation of an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the Eastern Mediterranean and declared concession areas for the purpose of oil and gas exploration in 2007, a high tension has grown over the possible maritime boundaries and related activities.

The tension has primarily been between Turkey, Greece, and the GCA, and escalated with further delimitation agreements such as those between Lebanon and the GCA (2007), Israel and the GCA (2010), Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) (2011), Turkey and Libya (2019), and Greece and Egypt (2020).

Some of the actual tension has always been associated with the resource-related activities considering that there are not fully agreed maritime boundaries by all sides in the Eastern Mediterranean. The regional states have therefore confronted each other not only over the possible maritime boundaries but also other related activities.

The Eastern Mediterranean Pipeline Project, known as the EastMed Project, has been one of these activities ever since it was initiated. First pronounced in 2016 by Greece with the EU’s encouragement and funds to finance the preliminary works (the EU pledged 36.5 million euros for research and technical planning), the project gained an official status with an intergovernmental agreement signed between Greece, Israel, and Cyprus (GCA) on January 2, 2020 in Athens, Greece.

The pipeline was planned to run for about 1,900 km, starting from a midpoint between Israel and the island of Cyprus in the sea,  in the Israeli section of the Levantine Basin, and eventually reaching Italy via the island of Crete and Greece with the Poseidon and IGB pipelines, a gas interconnector pipeline which connects gas supplies coming from both Bulgaria and Greece.

It was said that it would carry at least 11 billion cubic meters of gas per year and cost around 6 billion euros to construct. It is being developed by IGI Poseidon S.A., a 50/50 joint venture between the Greek gas company Public Gas Corporation of Greece (DEPA) and the Italian gas company Edison. The project is aimed to be completed by 2025.

The IGB pipeline project was regarded by the related or supporting states as not only a means of transporting the extracted gas from the Eastern Mediterranean to Europe but also a means of achieving strategic goals.

These strategic goals belong to Greece for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the IGB Pipeline Project is a means of establishing a partnership with regional states such as Israel and Egypt as well as non-regional states such as the United States and EU countries over the resources of the Eastern Mediterranean. The Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis made a statement upon signing the agreement saying, “Today we did not simply sign a beneficial agreement. We sealed our resolve for a strategic connection between our countries in a region that now more than ever needs growth and security.”

Despite Turkey’s objections, Greek efforts seem well approved as the project has been supported by regional states such as Israel, Egypt, Jordon, and the Palestinian Authority, and by some non-regional states such as the U.S. and France.

Egypt had already worked for the creation of the East Mediterranean Gas Forum on July 25, 2019 with the participation of seven countries, namely Egypt, Jordan, the GCA, Greece, Italy, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority, and further signed an agreement with the GCA on September 19, 2018 to construct a line linking Egypt and Cyprus’s Aphrodite gas field to Egypt’s gas liquefaction stations.

The Israeli reason for joining the forum seems to be commercial. On the signing of the agreement, former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “This is a historic day for Israel… Just days ago, we started pumping [the] Leviathan [gas field]… We have huge quantities there. This means a lot of money will come into the economy. That is good for peace because we have agreements with our Arab neighbors.”

For the EU, the reason for joining the East Mediterranean Gas Forum was also commercial alongside the aim not to depend heavily on Russian gas. Competition to provide gas to Europe is fierce, as the continent seeks to rid itself of coal and high greenhouse gas emissions. Despite the various pipelines coming to Europe such as the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) or the shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the U.S., there is still a gap in the market.

The U.S. had been supportive of the East Mediterranean Gas Forum from the very beginning. Frank Fannon, then assistant secretary for the Bureau of Energy Resources (ENR), was present at a meeting in Athens in August 2019 when the project was agreed upon. The primary reason for the U.S. supporting the forum seems to have been to diminish the European countries’ dependency on Russian gas. It is also alleged that the U.S. has used the EastMed project to counter Turkey for some “unproved acts” such as its relations with Russia.

The U.S. withdrawal of support from the EastMed project

Despite the above-mentioned compelling reasons for supporting the project, recently, the U.S. has officially withdrawn its support from the project. In a statement by the U.S. Embassy and Consulate in Greece, it announced, “The United States continues to strongly support regional efforts that enhance and promote cooperation and regional stability, including the 3+1 mechanism in which the Republic of Cyprus (ROC), Greece, Israel, + the United States participate… We are shifting our focus to electricity interconnectors that can support both gas and renewable energy sources. We support projects such as the planned EuroAfrica interconnector from Egypt to Crete and the Greek mainland, and the proposed EuroAsia interconnector to link the Israeli, Cypriot and European electricity grids.”

The U.S. State Department sources have been cited as saying that the EastMed pipeline project should be abandoned altogether. The inevitable question is why the U.S. decided to shift its focus away from the EastMed Project. To answer this, it is possible to identify a number of reasons.

The EU aims to reduce the use of natural gas in Europe by 25% by 2030 and for it to be abandoned completely by 2050.

One of the most frequently stated reasons is the fast-growing focus on green energy. Due to the universal trend towards green energy to meet the Paris Agreement on Climate Change targets (COP21), the future of fossil resources seems blurred beyond 2030. The abovementioned statement by the U.S. notes that “at a time when Europe’s energy security is–more than ever–a question of national security, we are committed to deepen our regional relationships and promote clean energy technologies. We are shifting our focus to electricity interconnectors that can support both gas and renewable energy sources.” The Biden administration is looking “critically at new fossil fuel infrastructure projects to ensure U.S. support is not directed to carbon-intensive sources and does not result in future stranded assets as we accelerate the clean energy transition.”

Similarly, the EU aims to reduce the use of natural gas in Europe by 25% by 2030 and for it to be abandoned completely by 2050. It is noted that even Israel announced that it will stop searching for natural gas and will focus on greater use of renewable energy sources (RES). In fact, Greece is doing the same, setting the production of 61% of its electricity from RES as a goal.

The year 2021 has witnessed an escalated tension in the Middle Eastern and European security complexes. Early this year, Saudi Arabia and Greece strengthened their bilateral cooperation. Simultaneously, France encouraged Greece to increase its armament while blaming its European partners for turning a deaf ear to the threats the European Union is facing.

France, Saudi Arabia, and Greece seem to have twofold gains from this cooperation. They could both better materialize their energy cooperation and target Turkey’s gas explorations as well as challenge Turkey’s maritime superiority in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean.

Since early 2021, Turkey is voicing its concern over the Saudi F-15s to be based in the Souda air force base in Crete. The first quarter of the year signaled a potential escalation regarding the military drills to be conducted in the Aegean Sea. Turkey’s chief objection was to the Saudi F-15s that would be piloted by Greek lieutenants during military drills.

In February 2021, the Philia Forum brought Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain together to integrate into the pre-established Greek-Egypt-Cyprus cooperation. The main actor behind this initiative was Saudi Arabia. France conducted the White Shark 21 maritime drills, which symbolized the new hawkish stance against the Turkish energy pivot in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Military drills jointly conducted by France, Greece, Israel, Cyprus, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE in the heart of the Aegean Sea are obviously a significant development. The dynamic of this alliance is issue-specific and narrow-scoped; however, it has a potential to attain short-term goals.

In the last three years, one of Turkey’s most important advantages has been its natural gas exploration in the Eastern Mediterranean.

In the last three years, one of Turkey’s most important advantages has been its natural gas exploration in the Eastern Mediterranean, which created political complications with states such as Greece, Egypt, Israel, Cyprus, and France as well as with institutions including NATO and the European Union. The current balance of power created room for maneuver for Turkey which is now being constrained by rival energy-seekers such as France, Italy, Greece, and Israel.

Nevertheless, this alliance has been forged to preserve the status quo, and an stalemate might be an actual gain for the guarantor states such as France. There are two interrelated motives behind the French foreign policy: defense exports and international prestige. France is a leading actor in defense exports and tries to be an alternative to the United States.

Greece and Israel try to increase their political influence to protect or obtain bargains from the European search for more reliable energy sources.

In the last three years, France has been the second-largest defense exporter to Saudi Arabia after the U.S. For the last 5 to 10 years, only the UK has been able to compete with France. Besides, Greece and Israel try to increase their political influence to protect or obtain bargains from the European search for more reliable energy sources. There are a lot of pull factors of entering such a dynamic such as increased resolve to engage in conflict, better military resources, and the higher chance of deterrence, etc.

Such circumstances create a potential conflict on the Turkish maritime borders in the Eastern Mediterranean. It seems like the age-old Turco-Greek debate on the naval border is going to evolve into a bitter rivalry over the control of the Eastern Mediterranean energy flow. Certain stakeholders such as energy providers like Egypt, Algeria, and Israel will set the tone for which side will have the wind at its back.

Turkey can become a trendsetter by discovering natural gas reserves. It might also play a transmitter role with a plan that bypasses Cyprus and Greece, and transfers the Eastern Mediterranean gas directly to the EU. In this context, the problem for the gas alliance builders in the Eastern Mediterranean seems to be Turkey’s potential to be simultaneously a trendsetter and a transmitter.

Turkey’s potential to attain this power is perceived as a threat by its rivals. From an international relations perspective, such conflicts are quite natural; the most formidable alliance will once again force the other to succumb to its demands.

The dream of natural gas bonanza in the Eastern Mediterranean naturally boosted littoral states’ expectations of economic benefit from ownership, exploration, exploitation, and transportation of natural gas reserves discovered in the region. Accordingly the international community – at the beginning – hoped that exportation of Israeli gas to Europe (possibly via a sub-sea pipeline to Turkey) could advance cooperation among regional states, make a political solution easy for already existing disputes like the Cyprus Question, and strengthen interdependence between Europe and the region.

These positive expectations led the Obama Administration to believe that the interested parties, which were potential stakeholders as buyers and sellers of natural gas as well as beneficiaries of energy firms, could be convinced to invest in a new Mediterranean cooperation. However, after 2011, neither did the USA show its willingness to support regional economic cooperation on the Eastern Mediterranean gas basin, nor did they support the newly found gas reserves by Israel. The Greek Cypriot Administration (GCA) and Egypt led the reinvigoration of an inclusive gas partnership. Geopolitical conditions radically changed after the Arab Spring and stakeholders of Eastern Mediterranean gas basins adopted competitive agendas in the ongoing conflicts. Since then geopolitical rivalry, not economic rationality, has become the main determinant of the limits of Eastern Mediterranean energy cooperation.

This competitive geopolitical atmosphere was first used by the GCA to violate the legitimate rights of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). On one hand, the GCA signed so-called EEZ agreements with Israel, Egypt, and Libya without taking the consent of the TRNC therefore, ignoring the economic, political, and legal rights of Turkish Cypriots, and also unilaterally dividing its so-called EEZ into blocks and inviting energy companies like ENI and Total to explore and drill offshore reserves around Cyprus. This is a violation against a part of Turkey’s continental shelf in so-called blocks 1,4,5,6, and 7. On the other hand, Tel Aviv exploited geopolitical faultlines in the region to marginalize the rights of Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, and TRNC in the maritime zones of the Eastern Mediterranean and to exclude them from the institutionalized attempt of regional energy cooperation (the East Mediterranean Gas Forum).

Energy firms are reminding us of the economic rationale behind the drillings

Within this framework of geopolitical rivalry, the economic side of the story, the expectation of benefits as well as the feasibility of the cost of investing in East-Mediterranean natural gas dreams, are forgotten. As is known until now, the projects excluding Turkey and the TRNC from the energy deals have not produced any tangible economic results. Therefore it is not wrong to assume that East-Med-like projects have turned out to be an illusion that was shattered recently when energy companies like Exxon-Mobile, ENI, and Total stopped their drilling operations in blocks 6 and 10 and postponed them till March/April 2021 because of the current energy landscape.

The most remarkable feature of the current energy outlook is falling oil prices. At the time of writing, the Brent crude is 42.30 USD which is not enough to motivate key energy companies to take high financial burdens and even higher political risks of investing in East-Med partners’ pipeline dreams. As one can remember oil prices began dropping in January because of the fall of demand to hydrocarbons in Asian markets affected by the coronavirus outbreak. Before European markets were hit by Covid-19, a price war begun between Russia and Saudi Arabia. The USA, feeling the negative impact of dropping oil prices on its national oil industry, had to pressure Riyadh to reach a deal with Moscow on production cuts.  Since then oil prices have gradually risen. However, this sign of improvement is not expected to change market conditions in the Eastern Mediterranean energy game because of two reasons:

The first reason is related to the current hydrocarbon surplus in the energy markets. Even before the coronavirus crisis there was more supply than demand for oil and gas and Covid-19 is just amplifying this problem. The Asianization of energy markets (reversing the route of East-West energy trade) has been proposed as a remedy but there is no such aspect of Asianization in trilateral Eastern Mediterranean energy partnership plans yet. Indeed, energy experts from the stake-holding firms, like ENI, have already announced their doubts about the economic and technical feasibility of the East-Med pipeline (1200 km off-shore, 500 km onshore length connecting Greece to Italy as well as 1550 km off-shore, 20 km on-shore pipeline connecting Greece to Bulgaria).

Moreover, some actors like France that are eager to take part in East Mediterranean geopolitics by providing security support to stakeholders in dealing with risks against critical infrastructure, are faced with the problem of maritime sustainability when the Covid-19 pandemic hit their naval deployments in the region. Hence security costs associated with the longest and expensive East-Med pipeline project become more apparent under the coronavirus pandemic. Therefore, it can be expected that international energy companies will lose their incentives to continue drilling activities in the Mediterranean. While energy companies are postponing drilling operations, Greek Cypriot and Egyptian authorities keep talking about the expansion of natural gas production from the East Mediterranean reserves. Thinking about the capabilities of planned pipelines like East-Med, expanding national gas production can be counterproductive even if it will be realized. Besides, WHO voiced the possibility of a second wave of Covid-19 which may further restrain global hydrocarbon demand.