“The Turcolibian agreement will be respected” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made statements on EastMed during his visit to Albania and the withdrawal of support for the project by the US and France, stressing that “gas to Europe will only go through Turkey“. The Americans and the French, with their attitude towards EastMed, adopted all the geostrategic positions of Turkey, “giving” it a major role in the transport of gas to Europe.

“Eastmed is not a project that can be carried out. (The Americans) did all the cost analyses and saw that there is nothing positive in this effort, they don‘t get the bills.

America is a country that is already taking all its steps based on capital. Given that the cost analyses did not pay off, the US withdrew its support, saying that “this is not a job that will be done“. After all this, what we are discussing is that this work cannot be done without Turkey. Because if gas is going to go from here to Europe, it will only go through Turkey,” Erdogan said.

In essence, R. T. Erdogan is reintroducing the old plan to build a pipeline that would pass through Cyprus and Turkey to transport Mediterranean gas to Europe.

A design that the Israelis once wanted before Israeli-Turkish relations broke down.

Regarding exploration and drilling in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Turkish President said, “Our approach in the Eastern Mediterranean is clear. We have an agreement with Libya. With this agreement, we put the issue in a formal text. We are continuing our work on this official text. At the same time, we took delivery of four drilling vessels and two seismic survey vessels. We didn‘t get these boats for nothing. These will operate in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. We will have the strongest infrastructure in this respect. “