... local powers. Most European states depend on imports of energy resources, which means that taking hold of new gas sources is an important element for strengthening their energy security and diversifying their sources of hydrocarbon supplies.
Currently, Greece, Cyprus, France, and Italy are among the main players that have divided up the known and future gas deposits in the Mediterranean among themselves. All these states are EU members. We should add that other EU states also indirectly benefit from new resources,...
... memorandums of understanding with Turkey” and the palpable geographic fact: “Egypt rejects Turkey-Libya sea rights, security agreements”:
The maritime deal would give Turkey access to an economic zone across the Mediterranean, over the objections of Greece, Cyprus, and Egypt, which lie between Tukey and Libya geographically.
Yulia Timofeeva:
Drilling at Gunpoint: EU Sanctions on Turkey
A week earlier, Russian Ambassador to Athens, Andrey Maslov, commented on various issues during an annual press
briefing
...
... international relations, and if hyperbolic passion, aggressiveness, and bellicosity contradict “rationality”, it should follow that the Turkish president’s rationality appears problematic. If this is inferred by looking at Erdogan’s policy vis-à-vis Cyprus and Greece — as a paradigm case or case study — the implications will be profound. This essay, theefore, will address primarily his anti-Hellenic behavior, but broader conclusions about his worldview and operational code will emerge via consideration ...
Moscow’s Cyprus-related Record
A Schematic Account of Telling Historical Facts
The vicissitudes of the Republic of Cyprus predate its formal creation in 1960, since the GCs, still under British Colonial rule, appealed to Greece in the mid-1950s to represent them at the United Nations in order to attain self-determination. While the “winds of change” were blowing globally, and as myriads of Greeks and hundreds of Greek Cypriots had sacrificed their lives during World ...
... profitable for Russia to acquire and develop Greek assets.
If this appraisal is not valid, then Kremlin’s foreign policy makers and strategists should seriously reconsider the validity of their analyses, because Russia, by refusing to shore up Cyprus and Greece during their recent financial and fiscal crises, has lost a unique opportunity to take on a leading role and seriously threaten for first time Western hegemony in the region.
Both Greece and Cyprus have been undergoing a profound identity crisis,...
The East Mediterranean is on the frontlines of a struggle for peace and economic development where Cyprus holds a central position of geographical and functional importance in terms of security, including energy security. The role of Cyprus in regional security as a host of military operations, including Afghanistan and Kuwait, and as the holder of the British sovereign bases have turned it into an indispensable partner of the West. The island has large expatriate populations from mainland Greece, Russia and the UK, maintains vital economic interests in the wider Middle East, but remains partially occupied by Turkey which has dispatched thousands of soldiers for the protection of an increasing expatriate population of Turkish nationals ...
