Opportunities and Challenges in the Eastern Mediterranean: Examining U.S. Interests and Regional Cooperation – Center for American Progress
Opportunities and Challenges in the Eastern Mediterranean: Examining U.S. Interests and Regional Cooperation – Center for American Progress
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“Redouble efforts to solve the Cyprus problem, including with the appointment of a special Cyprus coordinator, a distinct position that existed from the late 1970s until the failure of the Annan Plan in 2004. There are more than a half-dozen hot conflicts and acute crises in the Eastern Mediterranean, not to mention transnational problems such as terrorism and migration. But the unsolved, transregional diplomatic problem that probably blocks the most avenues of Eastern Mediterranean cooperation is Cyprus. Were the Cyprus problem solved, there might already have been a pipeline carrying Israeli and Cypriot gas to Turkey for onward piping to Europe. There would be no aggressive Turkish actions to block Cypriot exploration activities in its EEZ, and a unified Cyprus might as well be a member of NATO rather than a potential source of conflict between NATO members Greece and Turkey. It is obviously a difficult and complicated problem—made no easier by Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots’ current insistence on a “two-state” solution as well as the opening of Varosha—but it is important that the United States continue to push for a solution. The problem has been frozen for decades, but the stakes are too high simply to allow the problem to fester. At some point, for its own sake, Turkey will have to accept the existence of the Republic of Cyprus, which is not only a member of the European Union, but which also has a growing network of regional and international ties.”
Interesting read, thanks.