Posted on 12/28/2011 8:57:47 AM PST by bayouranger
Cypriot President Demetris Christofias has warned Turkey to stop its warships shelling the strip of water dividing the Cypriot and Israeli gas exploration zones in the eastern Mediterranean.
Debkafile's military sources report Wednesday that Turkish warships began turning their guns on the strip dividing Israel's Leviathan gas field from Block 12 of Cyprus's Exclusive Economic Zone-EEZ, where a large gas field was recently discovered. Neither Israel nor Cyprus reported the Turkish attacks, which are staged in international waters, but both reinforced their naval units around the gas fields.
It was the Cypriot president who broke the silence Friday with a warning: "If Turkey does not change its gunboat diplomacy and stop playing the part of regional police officer, there will be consequences, which, for sure, will not be good -- either for the whole region or the Turkish people and, first and foremost, for Turkish Cypriots."
On Thursday, Israel canceled the $90 million sale to the Turkish Air Force of Elbit's hi-tech LOROP-Long Range Oblique Photography military surveillance system. Israeli defense sources said the transaction was canceled lest SAR radar or LOROP technology find their way into the hands of Israel's enemies, such as Iran.
According to military sources, Israel timed the deal's cancelation as a warning to Ankara to back off from its campaign of harassment in and around Israel's gas fields. Jerusalem, Athens and Nicosia are economic and security partners in the exploration and development of eastern Mediterranean gas resources.
The same firm, Noble Energy Inc of Houston, Texas, is working both Cypriot and Israeli fields. Shares in the U.S. company are held in Cyprus by the Cypriot national energy company and in Israel by Delek Drilling LP and Avner Oil Exploration LLP.
The recent discovery that the gas fields are much bigger than first believed has raised the stakes around them. The three governments involved are looking forward to becoming major gas suppliers to Europe and so reducing the continent's dependence on Russian and Turkish gas pipelines. Noble Energy's latest estimate, published Dec. 19, added 6.3 percent to the Leviathan well's untapped potential, raising it from the previous estimate of 16 to 20 trillion cubic feet.
Nicosia too will shortly issue an upwardly revised estimate of its gas field. According to Debkafile's energy industry sources, the new figure is cautiously estimated as 10 trillion cubic feet.
Both expect Ankara to escalate its nuisance offensive after the new Nicosia bulletin. As a precaution, Cypriot Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis was dispatched to Washington on Dec. 19 to talk the situation over with administration officials and obtain U.S. support for the continuing gas enterprise and the Cypriot stance against Turkish threats.
According to our Washington sources, the advice from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was to go full steam ahead with gas drilling and ignore Turkish harassment. After their meeting, Kozakou-Marcoullis said the prospects for gas development have already dramatically increased her country's strategic importance.
In a speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, she called Turkey "the neighborhood bully," adding that a Turkey "whose foreign minister once promoted a policy of 'zero problems' with its neighbors is now pursuing a policy of 'only problems.'"
WHY?....it’s drilling that is NOT in our country...
Maybe the Greeks will have a “Belgrado” moment and sink a Turkish warship.....and blame it on the Norks.
Be careful about taking stock in a supposed Israeli-Turkey conflict, they are cooperating very closely. Where does anyone think Israeli Air Forces would refuel and get overflight permission on a flight plan to say.......Iran?
Get out your maps, just sayin’.
This is more about showing the immaturity of Turkey’s leadership at present.
Oh, they took away France’s over flight permission of Turkey over the Genocide bill that recently passed.
Just sayin’
Here’s more of their childlike behavior:
Turkey Aims to Limit France’s Mideast Role
Turkey’s military and political sanctions against France over the adoption of a controversial “genocide” bill aim to limit French influence in the Middle East and Caucasus, two important regions associated with ongoing ethnic and sectarian conflicts.
Immediately after the French Parliament voted Thursday in favor of a bill penalizing the denial of the 1915 events as genocide, the Turkish government announced that it would retaliate in kind with sanctions falling into eight categories. Four of them are military-related, three are political and the last spells out the cancelation of an economic and trade meeting.
In addition to the cancelation of joint military drills and joint exchange and training programs, Turkey has canceled annual blanket over-flight permission for French state planes and will instead issue permission on a case-by-case basis. It will also halt requests for port visits by French warships.
A very important detail suggests that these sanctions are not going to be removed even if France retreats from its position and quashes the genocide bill in the Senate.
“The sanctions will continue to be valid until the Turkish government says the opposite,” a Turkish diplomat recently told the Hürriyet Daily News. According to the diplomats, the measures will seriously affect French access to the Middle East and the region beyond Turkey.
“France has intense ties with so many countries in our neighborhood. It has military and other sorts of cooperation with these countries. They gained a great advantage in reaching out to these regions using the blanket permission we have long provided to them,” a diplomat told the Daily News. “Now they will lose time and money in doing so.”
Two of the Middle East’s key countries, Syria and Lebanon, where France replaced the Ottoman Empire as the colonial power after World War I, are seen as being crucial for the entire region’s stability and still have close ties with Paris. Though the turmoil in Syria precipitated rapprochement between Turkey and France, recent developments indicate that the power struggle between the two sparring countries will now be exercised in the Middle East.
“Turkey will do everything to prevent a meeting on Syria and other key topics under the aegis of France,” a diplomat said.
However, this development has seriously disturbed the United States since the tension is likely to weaken the international community’s position vis-à-vis Syria.
~~~Diplomacy is too hard for koranimals to contend with...they always lash out.
Armenia.
Sure, they’d have to overfly Turkey, but then... they’d have to overfly Syria/Lebanon to get up there anyway.
Or if they go out into the Med to avoid ‘em, then they can fly to Greece and then up and over to Armenia.
The likely flight path would be over the Med & Istanbul, the Black Sea, refuel and then over E Turkey along the border with Armenia and Georgia, right over Tabriz and into Iran.
The Black Sea refuel gives them all the range they need.
You’re assuming that Iran won’t use Turkey for an over-flight to say...Israel. My impression has been that Turkey and Iran are lately best buds, even if that stream of refugees from Syria has gotten Erdogan POd at Assad.
Thanks gandalftb.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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