Today.Az » World news » Turkey offers pipelines to Cyprus, Israel, Iraq
27 May 2013 [11:09] - Today.Az
Energy-hungry Turkey has offered to cooperate with its oil and gas-rich southern neighbors for the exploration and transportation of their hydrocarbon products to world markets via Turkey. It has particularly called out to Israel and Cyprus, which recently had problems over the legality of the licenses issued for petroleum exploration in the eastern Mediterranean.
“Israeli officials, local officials in Greek Cyprus and representatives of the TRNC [Turkish Republic of the Northern Cyprus], they have all agreed on one reality: The natural gas to be produced from this region will get its utmost feasibility by a pipeline that will pass through Turkey. All relevant figures prove this idea,” Energy Minister Taner Yildiz told the outlining the Turkish government’s energy policies regarding oil and gas reserves of its southern neighbors.
Yildiz held substantial meetings with acting Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman and U.S. President Barack Obama’s special envoy for energy issues Carlos Pascual last week in Washington. The meetings were crucially important as the two allies found themselves on opposite sides on a number of issues related to Baghdad-Ankara tension over the latter’s growing interest in making deals with the Kurdistan Regional Government and to the Turkey-Cyprus quarrel over the Greek Cypriot government’s ambitious moves for oil exploration in the disputed areas of the Mediterranean.
Although Yildiz underlines that Turkey appears to be the best route for these countries to flow their products to world markets, he is doing his best to show that Turkey is not in a position to abuse its geographical advantage in its potential talks with its neighbors.
“Turkey does not say ‘Well, you are obliged to pass through our territories, so let’s talk over this.’ It adopts a very realistic approach,” he said. “Instead,” Yildiz continued, “Turkey says it’s open to any sort of projects with the accomplishment of political stability in the region.”
/HurriyetDailynews.Com/
|
|
