Cyprus-Forum.com

[Capt J Sparrow]

Texas-based energy firm Noble Energy began exploratory drilling in Cyprus’ Exclusive Economic Zone on Monday, defying Turkish demands to cease and desist. Since the island of Cyprus is divided into two, with one part internationally recognized as the Republic of Cyprus and the other, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, recognized only by Turkey, Noble Energy was already venturing into controversial waters. What Noble Energy, Cyprus, the United States and much of Europe likely did not anticipate, however, was that Turkey — for lack of better options — would try using this drilling dispute to herald its return to the eastern Mediterranean.

Regional developments — from Iran filling a power vacuum in Iraq, to protracted unrest in Syria and a brewing Egypt-Israel crisis — are pushing Turkey into action. The United States is certainly aware of the problems that are quickly piling up in the Middle East, but Washington is still trying to regain its footing after more than a decade of fighting wars in the Islamic world. Turkey is in a position to ease the United States’ burden in this region. Washington and Ankara will have their fair share of disagreements, but Turkey’s considerable military, political and economic power can help Washington manage the neighborhood while pursuing common strategic interests on other issues, such as the containment of Russia.

Turkey, however, is not quite ready to fulfill this role, and is especially unprepared to project influence in the eastern Mediterranean. It takes time to build up regional clout, and to be credible a country needs to display military strength and political willpower. This may mean losing friends in some places, but for a country with ambitions like Turkey, that could be a small price to pay if it means Turkey’s neighbors will start taking Ankara more seriously. But hard power is, well, hard. Turkey, unprepared to deal with the more difficult issues, is instead expending a great deal of effort on low-cost rhetorical moves designed to enhance its regional clout.

As Turkey is learning in its dealings with Israel, however, rhetoric is of little use when not backed by substance. Condemnations against Israel are a great way for Turkey to enhance its appeal in the Arab street, especially amid pro-Palestinian fervor in the region as the United Nations vote over Palestinian statehood approaches. This led Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week to make a high-profile visit to Cairo, where he tried to evince a fatherly image, that of a regional caretaker come to help Egypt fend off an intractable neighbor. Yet there are no strong indications Turkey is prepared to follow through on threats to deploy frigates to escort Turkish aid ships to Gaza.

Israel finds itself in an increasingly vulnerable position, and cannot afford to alienate a regional neighbor like Turkey, but it also knows that Turkey does not want to get into a shooting war with the Israel Defense Forces. Israel and Turkey also have little interest in a covert battle of pitting militant proxies against one another, as Israel’s firebrand Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman threatened recently, announcing that Israel would support the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in Turkey. That bold statement may not have enjoyed the backing of all of Israel’s leadership, but it did give the Turks pause.

As Turkey realized the limits of its actions with Israel, it quickly turned its attention to the island of Cyprus. On the surface, Cyprus appeared to Turkey a far easier target in the eastern Mediterranean. Turkey thus reacted quickly to the news of Noble Energy’s drilling plans, and said that frigates, gunboats and the Turkish air force would be closely monitoring their actions. Moreover, Turkish officials have threatened to send their own oil platform to drill in the disputed waters off the coast of Cyprus, under a continental shelf agreement with the Turkish Cypriot government, and even to provide naval escorts for its exploration crews.

Turkey reckons that Europe is far too distracted with the eurozone crisis to come up with a coherent policy for Greece’s troubled finances, much less an energy dispute in Cypriot waters. Ankara also assumed that the United States, already dealing with multiple, growing crises in the eastern Mediterranean, and looking for Turkish assistance to put out many of these fires, would defend Turkey and pressure the Greek Cypriots and Noble Energy to hold back on drilling.

But the Turks appear to have miscalculated. The United States has been extremely quiet in recent days, but an “unnamed senior U.S. official” leaked to reporters that Washington supports “the right” of Cyprus to explore for energy. In other words, Washington was sending a careful, yet deliberate message to Turkey: to not count on U.S. backing in this fight, and to back down. In many ways, Turkey was using the Cyprus dispute as a litmus test in its relationship with the United States. Although Washington has a strategic need to develop a much stronger relationship with Turkey, it does not appear ready to back Ankara in this particular dispute. This is bound to cause friction in the coming days between Washington and Ankara.

The Turkish government may need to factor in an additional concern. Greece may indeed be far too distracted with its financial crisis to react decisively to Turkey’s actions against Cyprus. But if Turkey actually tries to follow through with its threat — carrying out overflights and providing naval escorts to energy exploration crews in disputed Cypriot waters — things could get messy. And if a hard-pressed Greek government is looking for a distraction to rally public support, a conflict with Turkey may not be a bad idea — especially if it’s one the Turks weren’t anticipating.

[Nikitas]

How is a role allocated to a nation? This is shaky stuff. No one allocated anything to the Turks.

As for the considerable economic and military power, this is a superficial assessment at best. If you look deeper into the Turkish economy what you see is a subsidy driven export boom, led to a great extent, by foreign owned firms who use Turkey as a manufacturing base and nothing more. There is no local industrial innovation, no locally generated technology and not much locally generated business that could survive even a day if the export subsidies are cut.

The military strength of Turkey is about par with its stronger neighbors, Greece and Israel, and in some areas, airpower for example, much inferior to Israel's.

The moslem card has been overplayed to the hilt. Erdo prayed with Libyan rebels to show that he is a fellow Moslem. But Arabs were the victims of the Ottoman empire, streets are named after martyrs summarily hanged by the Turks. These sentiments form part of the local culture in most Arab countries and are not forgotten.

The president of the Union of Jewish Organization in the USA put it well in an interview with Greek daily Kathimerini today saying "The Turks must remember that the are neither Arabs nor Iranians". In other words they are not the big players in the Middle East and they cannot become big players.

In the last resort this is what irks the Turks and drives them to cause trouble, they are largely irrelevant in this area, despite their much touted strategic position and other imaginary advantages that exist only in the minds of retired generals and think tank theorists. They are neither European nor Middle Eastern, they fit nowhere in the wider scheme of things.

[Get Real!]

Many countries have told Turkey to cut the anti Cyprus crap (pertaining to oil) including the EU, Germany, the US, Greece, Israel, and Russia.

The result is an isolated Erdogan who has now out of frustration decided to pick on Syria hoping to get a pat on the back from the US and Israel like the good old days, but he should tread carefully because Syria can more than defend herself; Syria has plenty of conventional power to keep Turkey militarily busy for the next five years if need be, and Assad must be desperate by now to get public attention away from his internal issues.

Erdogan, is like a mad dog with rabies looking to bite at anything and anyone as his empty threats are piling up beyond anything a patriotic Turk can bare!

The way Turkey is going she’ll be lucky to make the end of this year without getting embroiled into something serious. And if she doesn’t, Turkey will have weakened herself to pieces in the eyes of all those who had great expectations.

Another point worth mentioning is the fact that the Erdogan government has in the last 2-3 years arrested, interrogated, and incarcerated a now significant portion of the Turkish military including high ranking officers, so he risks discovering at the worst possible moment that the military is NOT on his side.

With all the huffing and puffing, Erdogan has set the agro bar way too high, so he is now damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t… either way a win-win situation for Turkey’s neighbors.

[Hermes]

Next round will hopefully attract French and Russian companies. Basically someone with a big army...

French oil companies expressing interest in the Cyprus EEZ

The French oil giants ‘Total’ and ‘Gaze de Frans’ bought three-dimensional seismic data for gas deposits in the Exclusive Economic Zone of Cyprus.

The cost of seismic data was over the 2 million euros for the company “Frans de Gaze” and over 1.6 million euros for the “Total”.

The drilling on the “Aphrodite” field and the evidence that there is potential for several trillion cubic feet of gas and derivatives, seem to attract other companies as well.

According to information from the Cypriot state broadcaster CyBC, so far, three-dimensional seismic data were bought by over 30 companies active in the petroleum sector.

Candidates include a Norwegian company and the Russian giant «Gazprom» who is preparing to purchase seismic data and dynamically entered the second round of licensing.

The next field that the Cyprus Republic will include in the process for the second licensing round is anticipated with interest.

The highest bid will win the next field but it is not impossible, according to the same information, that all fields will be included, in the event that the offers will be beneficial.

Source: kathimerini.gr