The Greek government on Sunday unexpectedly announced that a trilateral agreement between Greece, Israel and Cyprus will be signed in Athens on Jan. 2 to push forth the EastMed natgas pipeline project, with Italy expected to sign at a later date.
The development, coming on the same day that Greek FM Nikos Dendias paid a previously unannounced visit to Benghazi, the seat of the eastern Libya political rival to the GNA administration in Tripoli, followed by a lightning visit to Cairo, is viewed as a direct response to a controversial deal between Turkey and the GNA to randomly draw maritime boundaries in the eastern Mediterranean between them – “erasing every island in roughly half the specific sea in the process.
The proposed EastMed pipeline is projected as carrying natural gas from Israeli and Cypriot offshore deposits to western Europe via Crete, the Greek mainland and on to Italian. Beyond finding the financing for such a massive endeavor, the pipeline is extremely ambitious from an engineering standpoint.
Turkey agreement with the shaky GNA administration in Tripoli is seen as an attempt to rely on even a dubious bilateral agreement, and in contrivance with the international law of the sea (UNCLOS), in a bid to “find a seat at the table” of hydrocarbon producers and transit countries in the Middle East.
