Turkish frigate blocked cable laying between Greece and Egypt

A Turkish frigate blocked the work of an Italian cable-laying company that was laying an electrical cable from Egypt to Greece, under the pretext that it was the Turkish EEZ.

Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar announced that an Italian company, which received a contract from Greece to lay a cable from Greece to Saudi Arabia across the Mediterranean Sea, in the area between Kastellorizo ​​and Cyprus, “has requested permission from the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs to enter Turkey’s exclusive economic zone. Permission has been granted.”

H.Akar stated that “the ship entered the exclusive economic zone of Turkey to work in the Eastern Mediterranean, but it did not have permission, and the frigate of our fleet asked it to leave.”

Turkish Foreign Ministry sources further said: “The Italian vessel approached us and we accepted it as we have jurisdiction in this area to issue the permit. However, the permit request will set a precedent and Turkey will require any interested party to apply to obtain permission to pass from the Turkish Navy”.

This means that the Italian company has agreed with the renunciation of Greece’s sovereign rights to the self-proclaimed EEZ of Turkey and the fact that the sea area in which it carried out work is under the sovereignty of Turkey. However, what claims can there be to the captain of a peaceful Italian cable-laying ship if a warship pointed a gun barrel at him.

As we reported earlier, in 2019, Turkey and Libya unilaterally concluded treaty, which stipulated the exclusive economic zone of Turkey in the form of a rectangle passing through the territory of Greece and affecting its islands. To stimulate the Libyan side, Turkey sent troops to Libya to help one of the sides of the civil war.

Greece, for its part, did not recognize this treaty and in 2020 concluded agreement with Italy, delimiting an exclusive economic zone (EEZ), in which it completely ignored the above-described claims of Turkey.

After 3 years, in 2022, Turkey went further, by publishing the mapin which almost half of the Greek islands were declared in the zone of Turkish interests.

What will the Turkish “permission to lay a cable” mean for Greece? This move by Turkey actually means that Ankara builds wall between Greek and Cypriot EEZs, making it practically impossible, without the use of armed forces, to lay a cable connecting Israel-Cyprus-Greece for the transmission of electricity. And the question arises whether it will also allow the transmission of electricity from Egypt to Greece, since it passes over the Turkish EEZ.

Practically today, the fate of laying the electrical cable between Greece and Egypt remains in question, since getting Ankara’s permission would mean recognition of the Turkish “right to the EEZ” south of Crete! The matter is very serious, since the Italian company reportedly informed Athens and the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where, of course, there was no reaction, and not a single warship was sent to support the Italian vessel, which was fulfilling a Greek government contract.

This map shows the area that the Turks consider their EEZ. It is obvious that the electrical cable from Greece to Egypt must “pass” through the Turkish-controlled zone in order to become a reality…

By the way, the same fate is likely to await the gas pipeline, which Greece and Cyprus planned to build from sections of the Cyprus EEZ. This means that Greece’s plan for energy independence ran into Turkey and, by fact turned into fiction.

Greece will definitely not accept the recognition of Turkish territorial claims, and Turkey will use all its military capabilities to prevent Greece from obtaining resources from the disputed territories. Only a war can resolve the conflict of interests, which neither side is in a hurry to start.

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