Last weeks events especially the death of Mr. Jobs, turned the attention of the public's focus away from the Eastern Mediterranean. The number of articles published, the war mongering and empty threads diminished with the public general interest. May be it is good so. Now is the era of back office diplomacy. It is time... Continue Reading →
Russia's sole remaining Kashin class (Project 61M) large ASW destroyer Smetlivyy is preparing for a deployment to the Mediterranean. The Black Sea Fleet ship, based in Sevastopol will sail to Italy to take part in the annual joint Russian-Italian naval exercise IONIEX 2011. According to the web site rusnavy.com, recently, all ship's systems were tested in different modes at... Continue Reading →
Spain agreed to host the ships US Navy is deploying to Mediterranean for NATO’s missile defense system. “Today the [NATO] security partnership takes a major step in the right direction,” Panetta told reports at the briefing. “With four Aegis ships at Rota,” he added, “the alliance is significantly boosting combined naval capabilities in the Mediterranean... Continue Reading →
While Eastern Mediterranean continues to be hotspot new players are trying to enter the game. One of them is France. According to Greek Daily Kathimerini: French energy companies 'Total’ and ‘Gaze de France’ bought three-dimensional seismic data for gas deposits in Cyprus' Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The cost of seismic data was over the 2... Continue Reading →
SACEUR, Adm. Stavridis arrived in Ankara today. He had meetings with General Özel, Cheif of Staff of Turkish Armed Forces, with Mr. Yılmaz, MoD Turkey, and Turkish MoFA delegates. He was in Israel yesterday and the day before attending some meetings too. When the most senior commander within NATO visits two countries that have a... Continue Reading →
While thew worlds attention is turned to the recent meetings and debates in the UN in New York, the high tension situation continues in the Eastern Med. The harsh rhetoric of last week turned into concrete actions. Turkey signed an oil and gas exploration agreement with Northern Cyprus the Turkish Cypriot part of the island.... Continue Reading →
As 19th September 2011, US based energy company Noble Energy is starting to drill for gas off Cyprus in Block 12. The company has already conducting exploration for gas off the Coast of Israel and found some large gas reservoirs. Block 12 lies just across the border of the Israeli-Cypriot maritime exclusive economic zones from... Continue Reading →
According to excellent and well-informed website The Portal Of Submarines, a Syrian delegation visiting Russia declared their intention to buy two submarines from Russia. On the occasion of the visit of Syrian military in Russia in the region of Astrakhan, the Russian news agency RIA Novosti said that Damascus wanted to order new equipment for... Continue Reading →
Political analysis has never been my strong suit. Therefore I was reluctant to write about the press statement of the Turkish Foreign Minister, regarding Turkish-Israeli relations. This statement can be regarded as the end of Mr. Davutoğlu's own personal “Zero problems with the neighbors” foreign policy. Whether that was a sustainable and realistic policy is... Continue Reading →
The Ticonderoga class cruiser of US Navy, CG-61 USS Monterey arrived in Kuşadası, Aydın for a 3 day port visit. USS Monterey is one of the BMD able ships of the US navy. Her cruise to the Black Sea two months ago, a short time after Russia and NATO have failed to agree on forms of cooperation on... Continue Reading →
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