Cyprus Policy Center (EMU-KPM) and the Faculty of Business and Economics, Department of Political Science and International Relations of Eastern Mediterranean University organized the seminar under the subject of “Exclusion of Turkey from the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum: Intellectual Mechanisms and Material Interests”.
The opening speech of the seminar was delivered by EMU Political Science and International Relations Department chairman and EMU-KPM President Prof. Dr. Ahmet Sözen. Highlighting the importance of the topic discussed and its timing, given the developments in the Eastern Mediterranean, Prof. Dr. Sözen has introduced TOBB University of Economics and Technology faculty member Assoc. Prof. Dr. Pınar İpek, who has important studies in the field of international political economy and energy security.
During her speech, Assoc. Prof. Dr. İpek emphasized that the policies to develop hydrocarbon resources, while creating new cooperative structures in the Eastern Mediterranean, also trigger escalating tensions. Touching on Turkey’s deteriorating relations with Greece, the Greek Cypriot Administration and Israel on the development of hydrocarbon resources, Assoc. Prof. Dr. İpek stated that this interaction led to Turkey’s exclusion from the process of institutionalization of the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum. The regionalization process between 2010 and 2020, intellectual mechanisms played an important role in the failure to reach an agreement between Turkey and the mentioned regional actors. Noting that in addition to Turkey’s exclusion from the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum, there have been shifts in Turkish foreign policy preferences, Assoc. Prof. Dr. İpek cited ancient cognitive factors, redefined ideas of cause and effect, and exogenous ideas as causes.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. İpek highlighted the importance of liquefied gas, shale gas and renewable resources and claimed that renewable resources will make the planned pipeline project in the Eastern Mediterranean more attractive to international investors. Assoc. Prof. Dr. İpek stated that the developments in the Eastern Mediterranean are of great importance in the conditions of Russia’s war against Ukraine, and that the Russian gas’s ability to export natural gas to the Asian market, which is defined as the “energy angle”, through new routes, reduces Russia’s dependence on the European market.
Translated from Kibris Postasi
