Turkey stops joining projects with Israel in the field of power. On a pause are put the planned exploration and production of hydrocarbons on fields in the Mediterranean Sea and also perspective transit of gas to Europe, though quite recently world experts prophesied that these countries will move the Russian Federation in the EC market.

In the spring of 2022 in the Russian media sphere news of one of the largest world news agencies loudly sounded: «Turkey and Israel discuss possibility of construction of the underwater gas pipeline from the Israeli sea Leviathan field through Turkey to the Southern Europe». This was immediately dubbed a blow to Russia as a supplier of blue fuel.

Then the Chief Adviser to the President of Turkey for Foreign Policy Ibrahim Kalyn declared that gas from East Mediterranean «can become an alternative source for the European Union which wants to reduce the dependence on the Russian gas against the situation between Russia and Ukraine». The Turkish side also transparently hinted at blue fuel, which it intended to produce itself. But it was again voiced its desire to become a transit country for gas from Israel. There was nothing unexpected in it (if not a disturbing foreign policy context of spring of last year). Turkey for the last 15-20 years seeks to become large power knot of the European value. So, it welcomes any gas pipelines which anyone is ready to build through its territory.

This approach in itself looks more than reasonably. Consumption of gas for the last one and a half decades in Turkey considerably grew — from 35.3 billion cubic meters in 2008 to 51.2 billion in 2022. It is impossible to call this growth continuous (in 2021 the republic consumed record 57.3 billion cubic meters). The main problem of Turkey in this way is series of economic crises. But fluctuations do not cancel the fact of growth.

On the way of formation of a large gas transmission hub in the territory this country can brag of successfully realized projects: The Southern Gas Corridor and Turkish Stream. Also in medium-term prospect is expected increase in supply of natural gas from Azerbaijan to Europe (within 10 billion cubic meters) and realization of a gas hub with Russia.

But on the way to transit greatness Ankara periodically strongly overestimated some projects in which it wanted to take part. Nabucco gas pipeline became the main such failure. And the Israeli project is ready to fill up this list.

In September of this year Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared that Turkey and Israel concluded the agreement on carrying out drilling operations and on routes of supply of energy resources as to the republic, and transit to Europe. It is interesting that several years ago this country actively (up to readiness to use military force) resisted to the Israeli gas projects. But business was not that they Israeli, and that they did not consider objectively existing geographical realities. At least in that look as Ankara understands those realities.

We are talking about the EastMed project (East Mediterranean Gas Pipeline) within which Israel wanted to organize export to the European Union of the gas extracted on its Leviathan field. The problem was in the Cyprian component.

EastMed assumed that the gas pipeline will go from Israeli Leviathan to Cyprus, from where natural gas of the Aphrodite field will come to a pipe. Everything went well: responsible persons from Greece, Israel and Cyprus flew to each other on a visit and signed one historical agreement behind another. Even the US Secretary of State flew in to sign some agreements, which was interpreted by the general public as a sign of Washington’s favor. And if so, then nothing can stop the project.

However Turkey which took an interest prevented, whether participants of the project know about the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in which waters are going to extract and to build something without its permission? Signers of historical agreements (including the Secretary of State of the United States) heard nothing about such a republic. From the point of view of Ankara, it was too annoying gap in knowledge of modern political geography therefore it actually with a military force slowed down realization of the East Mediterranean gas pipeline.

And that nobody doubted that support of the USA guarantees success of any undertaking, in January, 2022 the United States officially refused support of EastMed.
Potential participants still tell about entertaining but impractical configurations of this project. But from working options it was talked of pumping of the Israeli gas on liquefaction to Egypt and of the organization shortly of deliveries through Turkey until recently. Yes, here any essential volumes were not even assumed. It was expected that Israel in the future will be able sometime to deliver on the EC market to 10 billion cubic meters a year.
On the other hand, at the moment there is no excess supply in the world, and Europe cannot even theoretically begin to regulate the consumption of blue fuel, as this inevitably led to a price confrontation with Asia.