Turkey-Israel-Cyprus Triangle And Mediterranean Gas
Tulin Daloglu writes that Israel’s strategic partnership with the Republic of Cyprus, including over Mediterranean gas fields, is yet another complication in Israeli-Turkish relations.
In November 2007, Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas jointly addressed the Turkish parliament, an event that buttressed Turkey's role in the region as an honest broker for peace. The Peres address was the first ever by an Israeli president before a Muslim parliament.
Turkey and Israel at that time were weighing the construction of an “infrastructure corridor” between the port cities of Ceyhan and Haifa, which would have included five separate underwater pipelines for oil, natural gas, electricity, water and communications. There was also speculation that these pipelines could go through Northern Cyprus.
That, however, was a red line for Greek Cypriot Foreign Minister Erato Kazakou-Marcoullis, who feared that Israel would thereby legitimize the Turkish side of the island when Nicosia had overwhelmingly rejected a United Nations proposal for a referendum in May 2004 on reuniting Cyprus, and despite that it had been accepted by the European Union as a full member.
In order to get reassurance from the Israeli side that their strengthening of ties with Ankara would not come at the cost of damaging their stiff position toward the Turkish Cypriot side, Marcoullis visited the Jewish state in December, only a month after Peres and Abbas made their historic appearance before the Turkish Parliament. No action she took scuttled proposals for a Turkish-Israeli “infrastructure corridor,” but developments in the region conspired against it.
