Daily Sabah – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his government is in contact with several countries, including Turkey, about natural gas in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
Netanyahu’s remarks are the first to be publicly announced about talks with Turkey and were made late Wednesday while addressing the Likud party in an electoral event in Bat Yam in central Israel.
He confirmed that Israel was also holding talks with Egypt, Greece and the Greek Cypriot administration and that discussions also tackled the issue of exporting gas to Europe.
Israel will hold general elections on March 23, which will decide Netanyahu’s political future amid intense competition between rival parties.
Israel’s energy minister also said Tuesday that Tel Aviv is ready to cooperate with Turkey on natural gas in the Eastern Mediterranean. Yuval Steinitz was speaking to the press about the Eastern Mediterranean Natural Gas Pipeline (EastMed) project during a visit to the Greek Cypriot administration.
Underlining the importance of the underwater pipeline, which he asserted would be the longest and deepest in the world, Steinitz said he hoped the project would be completed in five years. He also said Israel had previously held talks about exporting gas to Turkey, though this is yet to produce results. He also expressed hope that Ankara could join the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum in the future.
Steinitz arrived in the Greek Cypriot administration on Monday and attended the signing ceremony of an agreement to link the electricity grids of the two countries, as well as Greece.
EastMed is a 1,900-kilometer (1,180-mile) natural gas pipeline project extending from Israel to Greece and then on to Italy. Critics have said it will not be possible to fill the pipeline with the current known gas reserves off Israel’s Eastern Mediterranean coast and that even if Egypt is added to the project, the project’s feasibility banks on potential new discoveries of reserves in the region.
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