Al Jazeera: Eastern Mediterranean gas: A new diplomatic opportunity?
Recent gas finds offshore Cyprus and Israel have led to suggestions that Eastern Mediterranean gas could supply Europe via Turkey along the so-called Southern Gas Corridor, e.g., through the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP).
Assuming that the various challenges to this proposal can be overcome, it could inject a positive dynamic into the troubled Turkey-EU relations by enhancing Turkey's role as a transit country for European gas supplies and thereby helping the EU reduce its dependence on Russian gas.
The most formidable of these challenges is the decades-old Cyprus problem - the de facto division of the island into a Turkish Cypriot north and a Greek Cypriot south - with only the de facto Greek Cypriot led Republic of Cyprus (RoC) recognised as the legitimate government on the island.