Offshore drilling for Oil and Gas has been a pain point in recent international refashions. The Pacific nations, from Japan in North to Vietnam in South, each and everyone is embroiled into a conflicting claim with one or other neighbour(s).
This oil obsession is now fast catching the nations in Mediterranean with Turkey getting into a war of words with its NATO partners Cyprus and France.
As of today both Cyprus and Turkey are issuing international maritime alert or Navtex. The Turkish Navtex warned that a drill ship will operate between Aug. 18 and Sept. 15 along with the Ertugrul Bey, Osman Bey and Orhan Bey vessels in the Eastern Mediterranean, southwest of Cyprus and that “It is strongly recommended not to enter the working area,”
Greek Cypriot administration of Southern Cyprus responded with a “counter-Navtex” claiming Turkey’s Navtex – unauthorized and invalid.
Claims and counter claims aside, this rush for oil and gas seems completely outdated – almost out of pages of last century. In the back ground of OPEC economies trying to diversify themselves, the Obsession of Offshore drilling almost seems counter productive.
The basic question is a simple one – how can a nation serve its own strategic interest by raking hostilities with its neighbours for a resource that is going to loose much of its value in next two decades.
The answer – it cannot.
In case of Turkey this is coming directly from her desire to be a superpower again. Erdogan believes himself to be an Ottoman sultan and is behaving like one. With Turks deeply entrenched into every single conflict in Middle East and North Africa yet another conflict with a European country is not something Ankara should look forward to.
Relations between Ankara and Washington have been strained since Obama’s second term over Syria and internal suppression of opposition in Turkey. They have not improved during Trump, and French seem to openly side with Cyprus on the ongoing drilling issue.
Seems like Erdogan is truely a Ottoman – creating enemies where there were none all the while fighing over a cheque from a failing bank
