In mid-August, a Turkish and a Greek warship collided in the Eastern Mediterranean, raising tensions in the most combustible naval stand-off the region has witnessed in 20 years. The crisis had started two days before, when Turkey deployed an energy exploration ship along with its naval escort to search for oil and natural gas in waters near the Greek island of Kastellorizo—waters Athens claims as its own maritime territory.
More than ever before, the latest cycle of escalation risks spiraling into a multinational conflict. Making a show of staunch support for Greece against Turkey, France dispatched warships to the contested waters and promised more. Egypt and Israel, which hold regular joint military exercises with Greece, have also expressed their solidarity with Athens. With France and Egypt already in open conflict with Turkey in Libya, observers around the world fear that any further escalation in the Eastern Mediterranean could set off a Euro-Middle Eastern maelstrom.
For decades, Eastern Mediterranean maritime boundary disputes were a local affair, confined to sovereignty claims and counterclaims among Cyprus, Greece, and Turkey. The game changer was the August discovery of the massive Zohr natural gas field in Egyptian maritime territory by the Italian energy major Eni. After Cyprus inked that deal, Israel, which had previously been considering building an Israel-Turkey undersea gas pipeline, followed suit and contracted to sell its gas to Egypt as well.
Turkey expressed its displeasure at these developments by engaging in a series of measured exercises of gunboat diplomacy, sending exploration and drillships into Cypriot waters, each with naval escort. With each Turkish action, the Egypt-Israel-Cyprus-Greece front increasingly gained military support from France, Italy, and the United States, each of which has significant economic investments in Eastern Mediterranean gas.
In a bid to break out of its regional isolation, in November Turkey signed its own maritime demarcation agreement with the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord GNA in war-torn Libya.
