{"id":30804,"date":"2020-02-22T00:25:58","date_gmt":"2020-02-21T22:25:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/norkhosq.net\/?p=30804"},"modified":"2020-02-22T00:39:38","modified_gmt":"2020-02-21T22:39:38","slug":"gas-wars-in-the-mediterranean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/?p=30804","title":{"rendered":"Gas Wars in the Mediterranean"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mike Whitney<\/a> \u2022\u00a0February 5, 2020<\/div>\n
The unexpected alliance between Turkey and Libya is a geopolitical earthquake that changes the balance of power in the eastern Mediterranean and across the Middle East. Turkey\u2019s audacious move has enraged its rivals in the region and cleared the way for a dramatic escalation in the 9 year-long Libyan civil war. It has also forced leaders in Europe and Washington to decide how they will counter Turkey\u2019s plan to defend the U.N-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA), and to extend its maritime borders from Europe to Africa basically creating \u201ca water corridor through the eastern Mediterranean linking the coasts of Turkey and Libya.\u201d Leaders in Ankara believe that the agreement \u201cis a major coup in energy geopolitics\u201d that helps defend Turkey\u2019s \u201csovereign rights against the gatekeepers of the regional status quo.\u201d But Turkey\u2019s rivals strongly disagree. They see the deal as a naked power grab that undermines their ability to transport natural gas from the East Mediterranean to Europe without crossing Turkish waters. In any event, the Turkey-Libya agreement has set the stage for a broader conflict that will unavoidably involve Egypt, Israel, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Europe, Russia and the United States. All parties appear to have abandoned diplomatic channels altogether and are, instead, preparing for war. <\/p>\n

On November 27, Turkey and Libya signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that commits Turkey to providing military assistance to Libya\u2019s Government of National Accord (GNA). The MoU also redraws Turkey\u2019s maritime boundaries in a way that dramatically impacts the transport of gas from the East Mediterranean to Europe.<\/strong> Israel is particularly worried that this new deal will undermine its plans for a 1,900-kilometer EastMed pipeline connecting the Leviathan gas field, off the coast of Israel, to the EU. YNET News summarized Israel\u2019s concerns in an ominously titled article: \u201cTurkey\u2019s maneuver could block Israel\u2019s access to the sea\u201d. Here\u2019s an excerpt:<\/p>\n

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\u201cTwo of Israel\u2019s wars (1956 Sinai campaign and 1967 Six-Day War) broke out over navigation rights. Israel must take note of a new reality taking hold in the Mediterranean. It must regard Turkey\u2019s actions as a substantial strategic threat and consider what it may do to respond to it\u2026<\/p>\n

This EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zones) designation essentially carved up much of the energy-rich Eastern Mediterranean between Turkey and Libya, prompting a wave of international condemnations first and foremost from Greece, Egypt, and Cyprus, who may be directly or indirectly affected\u2026..Turkey\u2019s disregard for the economic waters of Greece, Cyprus, and Egypt.<\/p>\n

Ankara is in effect annexing those areas pending an appeal to international tribunals, which can take many years to resolve. In practical terms, Turkey created a sea border the width of the entire Mediterranean<\/strong>.\u201d (\u201cTurkey\u2019s maneuver could block Israel\u2019s access to the sea\u201d<\/a>, ynet news<\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The analysis from America\u2019s premier Foreign Policy<\/em> magazine was no less foreboding. Check it out:<\/p>\n

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\u201cTurkey is meshing together two Mediterranean crises in a desperate bid to reshape the region in its own favor, with potentially nasty implications both for the ongoing civil war in Libya and future energy development in the eastern Mediterranean.<\/p>\n

This month, Turkey\u2019s unusual outreach to the internationally recognized government of Libya has resulted in a formal agreement for Ankara to provide military support, including arms and possibly troops, in its bid to hold off an offensive from Russian-backed rebels in the eastern part of the country. The military agreement came just weeks after Turkey and that same Government of National Accord reached an unusual agreement to essentially carve up much of the energy-rich eastern Mediterranean between them<\/strong>\u2014threatening to cut out Greece and Cyprus from the coming bonanza\u2026.\u201d (\u201cNewly Aggressive Turkey Forges Alliance With Libya\u201d, Foreign Policy<\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

While these new developments are likely to intensify the fighting on the ground in Libya, they also portend a deepening of divisions within the region itself where new coalitions are forming and battle-lines are being drawn. On the one side is the Turkey-Libya Axis, while on the other is Greece, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, France, Germany, UK and probably the United States although the Trump administration has not yet clarified its position. In any event, the war between Libya\u2019s internationally-recognized government and Haftar\u2019s Libyan National Army (LNA) is just a small part of a much larger struggle over vital hydrocarbons in a strategically-located area of the Mediterranean. Here\u2019s a clip from an article at War On The Rocks that helps to underscore the stakes involved:<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe discovery of significant deposits of natural gas in the Eastern Mediterranean beginning in 2009 was a game-changer that upended regional geopolitics. It prompted new and unexpected alliances between Israel, Greece, Cyprus, and Egypt to maximize their chances of energy self-sufficiency. The bulk of the gas lies in Egypt\u2019s Zohr field, the Leviathan and Tamar fields in Israeli waters, and the Aphrodite near the island of Cyprus. With recoverable natural gas reserves in the region estimated at upward of 120 trillion cubic feet, the strategic implications could not be bigge<\/strong>r. This is about the same amount as the proven gas in the whole of Iraq, the 12th largest reserve globally\u2026.(Israel\u2019s gas field) Leviathan is estimated to hold 22 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas, and a potential half a million barrels of oil.\u201d (\u201cHydrocarbon Diplomacy: Turkey\u2019s Gambit Might Yet Pay a Peace Dividend\u201d, warontherocks.com)<\/p>\n

Turkey\u2019s ambitious gambit makes it more likely that its rivals will increase their support for the Libyan warlord, Haftar, who is, by-most-accounts, a CIA asset that was sent to Libya in 2014 to topple the government in Tripoli and unify the country under a US puppet. Haftar\u2019s forces currently control more than 70% of the Libyan territory while almost 60% of the population is under the control of the GNA led by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj. According to Turkish news: \u201cMore than half of Haftar\u2019s troops are mercenaries from Russia and Sudan, who are mainly paid by the Gulf states.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In April, 2019, Haftar launched an offensive on the government in Tripoli but was easily repelled. In recent days, however, Haftar has resumed his attacks on the city of Misrata and on the Tripoli airport in clear violation of the Berlin ceasefire agreement. He has also received shipments of weapons from the UAE despite an arms embargo that was unanimously approved two weeks ago at the same Berlin Conference. We expect that support for Haftar will continue to grow in the months ahead as Berlin, Paris and particularly Washington settle on a plan for reinforcing proxies to prosecute the ground war and for blunting Turkey\u2019s power projection in the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n

The Turkey-Libya agreement is a clumsy attempt to impose Turkey\u2019s preferred maritime boundaries on the other countries bordering the Mediterranean. Naturally, Washington will not allow this unilateral assertion of power to go unchallenged.<\/p>\n

And while Washington\u2019s strategy has not yet been announced, that merely indicates that the foreign policy establishment was caught off-guard by Turkey\u2019s November 27 announcement<\/strong>. It does not mean that Washington will accept the status quo. To the contrary, US war-planners are undoubtedly putting the finishing touches on a new strategy aimed at achieving their objectives in Libya while at the same time dealing a stinging blow to a NATO ally that has grown closer to Russia, caused endless headaches in Syria, and is now disrupting Washington\u2019s plans for controlling vital resources in the East Mediterranean.<\/p>\n

Washington sees Turkey\u2019s assertive foreign policy as a sign of \u201cdefiance\u201d which requires a iron-fisted response. But any attack on Turkey or Turkish interests will only intensify the bad blood between Ankara and Washington, it will only put more pressure on the threadbare NATO alliance, and it will only push Turkish president Erdogan further into Moscow\u2019s corner. Indeed, the Trump team should realize that an overreaction on their part could trigger a fateful realignment that could reshape the region while hastening the emergence of a new order.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.unz.com\/mwhitney\/gas-wars-in-the-mediterranean\/<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mike Whitney \u2022\u00a0February 5, 2020 The unexpected alliance between Turkey and Libya is a geopolitical earthquake that changes the balance of power in the eastern Mediterranean and across the Middle…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30804"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30813,"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30804\/revisions\/30813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}