Turkey protests against undersea electricity cable deal

Turkey’s seismic vessel, alongside the Turkish navy, is seen at the Eastern Mediterranean on 10 August 2020 [Ministry of National Defense/Anadolu Agency]

Turkey has protested formally to Greece, Israel and the European Union against the new deal which will connect them through an undersea electricity cable which it claims passes through Turkish territorial waters, Anadolu has reported.

The agency quoted Turkish officials as saying that Ankara has sent diplomatic protest notes to Greek, Israeli and EU diplomats in Ankara. They have been told that they require Turkey’s permission for such a project.

Israel, Greece and Cyprus reached an agreement on 8 March to conduct feasibility studies to lay a 2,000-megawatt undersea cable at a maximum depth of 2,700 metres. If implemented, the project would be the world’s longest such electricity cable.

Cyprus TV reported that the European Commission approved the project in 2016, and will fund it to the tune of €647 million ($769 million).

Turkey: ‘EU should show leadership in tackling migration issue’

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.