Τurkey’s Energy Minister, Taner Yildiz, told reporters in Antalya that his country is open to proposals concerning joint Greek-Turkish oil explorations in the Aegean, as long as such projects are joint.
In fact, the Turkish Minister revealed that the issue had already been discussed between the former Greek PM, George Papandreou, and the Turkish PM, Recep Tayip Erdogan, during the latter’s visit to Athens in May 2010.
The Turkish Minister also referred to the oil and natural gas explorations in the EEZ of Cyprus, pointing out that all roads lead to Turkey becoming the middle-man of transporting oil and gas to Europe. He also added that if the incident with the nine dead Turkish activists in Mavi Marmara had not occurred, Turkey would have supported the project of oil and natural gas transportation.
Yildiz noted that Israel needs to apologize for its special forces’ attack against the activists before Turkey decides to join the energy transportation network.
According to a defence.net report, back in May 14, 2010, and only a few weeks before Greece signed its first Memorandum with the EU and IMF, several Greek newspapers and leaks spoke about off the record conversations between the two PMs that did not merely focus on the strengthening of bilateral relations.
However, what is extremely frustrating for Greece is that its former Greek PM had publicly supported in December 2009 the position that Greece did not have any particularly rich reserves to start drilling for natural gas and oil.
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