Shifting Sands Or Burning Bridges? The Evolution of Turkish-Israeli Relations after the Mavi Marmara Incident a nd the Strategic Energy Calculations of Greece & Cyprus

Policy Paper (ELIAMEP) No. 22, February 7th, 2014, 69 p.
Hellenic Foundation for European & Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP)

by Dr. Theodoros Tsakiris *

The tectonic changes that have been shaping the Near East since the beginning of the Arab Spring in early 2011 have over shadowed the significance of the disintegration in Turkish-Israeli relations in the shaping of the new balance of power in the region and beyond it. The fall of the Mubarak and Qaddafi regimes and the continued civil war in Syria are reshaping the modern Middle East in ways which are apparently more important than the falling-out between the region’s two most important U.S. allies. Within so volatile and unstable an environment, where geopolitical alignments seem to shift faster than the desert’s sands, one could discard the importance of the Turkish-Israeli “divorce” as a temporary phenomenon.

* Assistant Professor, Geopolitics of Hydrocarbons at the University of Nicosia & Head of Energy & Geopolitics Programme at ELIAMEP

Download full text (Format Pdf)