What will affect the speed of implementation of new energy projects in the Black and Mediterranean Seas?

In the summer of 2020, Turkey which depends on energy supplies and for many years is trying to reverse this situation through an independent search for hydrocarbons in the surrounding seas, found gas in the Black Sea; and, inspired by this discovery, took up the exploration of the Eastern Mediterranean with renewed vigor.

The Black Sea countries have no claims to Turkey's jurisdiction over the Sakarya field discovered in its coastal waters in August 2020 (the first estimate of reserves is 320 billion cubic meters); but in the Eastern Mediterranean there is a territorial dispute with Greece which almost outgrew this summer into an armed confrontation between Turkey and Greece - NATO partners.

The presence of significant gas reserves (over 3-4 trillion cubic meters) in the Mediterranean Sea was confirmed in 2009 and the neighboring countries gradually began to "divide the pie".

At the same time, the situation aggravated in 2019, after the creation of the Eastern Mediterranean gas forum with the participation of Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Egypt, Jordan, Israel and Palestine and Turkey's retaliatory step - the signing  an agreement with the UN-recognized government of Libya in November last year on the delimitation of sea zones in Mediterranean.

According to this document, Turkey received the rights to a number of territories; but according to the agreement signed in January 2020 between Greece, Cyprus and Israel on the construction of the East Med gas pipeline, this future pipeline must partially pass through a section off the coast of Turkey, which this republic opposes, since considers this its zone.

The talk is about the area around the island of Meis (the Greeks call it "Kastelorizo"), 7 km from the Turkish port of Kas and 580 km from mainland Greece.

Since 1947, Greece has exercised jurisdiction over this island, while Turkey recognizes legal control of the Greeks only over six nautical miles of territorial waters around the island.

That is why in August 2020,  Turkey inspired by its Black Sea gas discovery, stepped up geological exploration in the Eastern Mediterranean region (the Oruç Reis vessel), but a month later on September 10 returned this vessel to its place of registration (the port of Antalya), demonstrating its readiness to negotiate with Greece.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a telephone conversation on September 17 with the head of the European Council Charles Michel reiterated his call for an objective and consistent position on all regional issues, especially in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The European Council summit will be held in Brussels on September 24-25, and the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean is among its main topics.

Mediators in negotiations

Mikhail Neyzhmakov, the leading analyst of the Russian Agency for Political and Economic Communications, told ASTNA, "Among the external forces influencing the prospects for negotiations between Athens and Ankara, it is worth highlighting the EU and NATO."

“The September negotiations between the military delegations of Turkey and Greece at the headquarters of the North Atlantic Alliance, as well as the decisions of the next week's summit of the European Council may affect the tactics of the parties to the conflict (against the background of the possible introduction of anti-Turkish sanctions). In this situation, offers of mediation from other players would not look very advantageous, because it would seem that these mediation efforts are still forced to lag one step behind decisions at the NATO and EU levels,” the expert said. However, Neyzhmakov did not rule out that the European Council summit could change the balance of mediating forces.

“For example, this is possible if the real steps of the EU in this situation cause disappointment of the Greek side, without fundamentally strengthening its negotiating positions. Therefore, for example, Russia approaches the prospects of mediation in this conflict very cautiously - in the near future it is more profitable for it to observe the situation from the outside," the expert noted.

At the same time, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Cyprus on September 8 (the formal occasion is the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations) and after negotiations, Cyprus Foreign Minister Nikos Christodulidis called Lavrov "the deepest expert on the Eastern Mediterranean problem."

“We are very worried that a far-located power, the United States, is trying to pit the countries located here against each other promoting the line 'who is not with us is against us'. The United States is trying to force all the others to follow this line,” Sergei Lavrov said during meetings with the President of the Republic of Cyprus Nikos Anastasiades.

In early September, the US State Department announced the lifting of the embargo on the supply of non-lethal weapon components to Cyprus for a year, calling the republic a key partner in the eastern Mediterranean. The embargo was introduced in 1987 to support the unification of the Greek and Turkish parts of the island. Last year, a Senate committee of the US Congress defined two conditions for lifting the embargo: Nicosia's cooperation with Washington in the fight against money laundering, and the closure of Cypriot ports to Russian warships.

These conditions remain in force, according to American diplomats. Moreover, commenting on the news of the lifting the embargo, US Ambassador to Cyprus Judith Garber described Russia's role in the region as destabilizing.

“We are concerned about the situation in the Mediterranean Sea. Regarding the relations with Turkey, we are ready to promote the establishment of a pragmatic dialogue based on mutual interests and on the search for solutions that will be fair and based on international law ... However, Moscow is ready to mediate in solving all acute questions only if the regional players ask it. And the only guarantee of the security of Cyprus can be the resumption of the talks interrupted in 2017 between the Greek and Turkish communities of the island, as well as strict adherence to UN resolutions,” the Russian Foreign Minister said on September 8.

The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held talks in Cyprus on September 13 and said that regional tensions would not bring a solution to the problems in the eastern Mediterranean.

He recalled the telephone conversation of the US President with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis about the growing tension in the region.

"Regional countries must resolve issues related to security, energy sources and maritime borders, diplomatically," said the American diplomat.

The Europeans want to influence the parties in different ways: Germany is asking for more time for negotiations with Turkey, while France, Cyprus and Greece itself are demanding punishment for Turkey, up to and including closing the road to the EU for it and completely blocking work in the Eastern Mediterranean. Turkey itself, in the event of such a negative situation, threatens to resume research in the Eastern Mediterranean.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel (Germany holds the EU presidency until January 2021) is well aware that tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean are fraught with serious armed conflict, which will exacerbate the crisis that Europe and the whole world are going through in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Turkey's role in receiving refugees from the war-torn north of Africa is very important.

Greece, which on August 27 ratified an agreement with Egypt on the demarcation of maritime boundaries, actually brought to naught the previous negotiations between Germany and Turkey on freezing work at the Meis Island.

Thus, between Germany and France, the most influential EU countries, there is no consensus on resolving the Eastern Mediterranean problem, and in such a situation, the EU's mediation efforts may fail.

Azerbaijan fully supports fraternal Turkey with regard to research activities in the surrounding seas, and President Ilham Aliyev announced it on September 2 in Baku to the new ambassador of Greece. The Azerbaijani leader recalled Greece and the failure to sign an agreement with SOCAR on the privatization of the Greek gas distribution company DESFA.

Behind such frankness of Baku is confidence - Greece will have to reckon with Azerbaijan's position, because it will soon receive the first gas from Azerbaijan via the new Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) as part of the EU's policy of diversifying energy supplies.

Greece's dependence on Azerbaijan, Turkey and Russia

Greece buys liquefied natural gas from Qatar, Algeria, Nigeria and the United States. But pipeline gas is supplied to it from the Russian Federation (the Turkish Stream gas pipeline), and since 2007 - from Azerbaijan on the basis of an agreement with the Turkish company Botas on the re-export of part of the gas from the first stage of the development of the Caspian "Shah Deniz" to Greece.

Botas recalled this week that this re-export agreement (0.75 billion cubic meters per year) ends at the end of 2021, the Turkish side has no desire to extend it and Greece will have to sit down at the negotiating table with the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR).

It is noteworthy that Greece is also "tied" to a 25-year contract on gas supplies from the second stage of “Shah Deniz” development, the supplies of which to Europe will officially start at the end of 2020 via the Trans-Adriatic gas pipeline (docked to the Trans-Anatolian pipeline on the territory of Turkey, part of the Southern Gas Corridor). Greece in transit through Georgia and Turkey will have to receive 1 billion cubic meters of gas per year from Shah Deniz-2.

Thus, Azerbaijan has a certain influence on Turkey and Greece, and it is possible that the Azerbaijani authorities are considering how to use the chance that falls through the Black and Mediterranean Seas to lobby for SOCAR. The same is true with the Russian Federation.

“In the question of attracting foreign partners to the development of a new gas field in the Black Sea, Turkey is more profitable to keep the intrigue, and this issue is unlikely to be finally resolved in 2020,” expert Mikhail Neyzhmakov said.

Nevertheless, he draws attention to repeated hints from Ankara about the possibility of attracting Russian companies to the project on the Black Sea.

“Perhaps Turkey will try to use the mention of this perspective as a bonus for negotiations with Russia on other issues, for example, the situation in Syria. But I think that Ankara will most likely voice such proposals when its relations with Moscow are on an upward trend,” the Russian expert said in an interview with ASTNA. However, a number of experts in Baku suggest that such possible consultations have already begun.

This can be indirectly indicated, for example, by the visit by the President of Azerbaijan of the six-story superyacht Eclipse of the Russian billionaire Roman Baranovichi on September 7 in Bo drum, and an unofficial meeting there with such authoritative Russian businessmen as Vagit Alekperov and Farhad Ahmedov.

Often behind this kind of informal communication, there are issues of concluding upcoming transactions.

Whether the Bodrum meeting on September 7 can be considered a mere coincidence against the backdrop of new energy projects in the Black and Mediterranean Seas is unlikely. Whether these projects will develop quickly or slowly depends on the reasonable position of all parties involved in resolving issues.