The Eastern Mediterranean Sea is Starting to Get Crowded

As regional powers attempt to rise, other regional powers will react. This is particularly true in this era of globalization. Turkey is now riding a learning curve. Here is how the latest is unfolding.

Turkey warned Thursday it will declare a border on the continental shelf if the island of Cyprus proceeds with offshore oil and gas drilling activities.

The Foreign Ministry's announcement came a day after Cyprus President Dimitris Christofias announced that U.S. firm Noble Energy will soon begin exploratory drilling to confirm deposits beneath the sea bed off Cyprus' southern coast despite Turkey's attempts to prevent such a move.

The undersea boundary has been among the most contentious issues in Greek-Turkish relations, with each country trying to mark out where on the continental shelf it can exploit seabed oil and mineral deposits in the Aegean Sea.

A move by Turkey to declare such a border would aggravate relations with Greece and Cyprus, which is divided into an EU-member Greek south and a breakaway Turkish north.

Turkey does not recognize Cyprus as a sovereign country and strongly objects to the Greek Cypriot search for mineral deposits inside the island's exclusive economic zone. It insists that Cyprus has no right to go ahead with the search before a settlement to reunify the divided island can be reached.

In a globalized world things are more complicated than small disputes between neighbors, particularly when one adds resource rights into the picture. Enter another regional power, one that has a history of pushing back when being pushed around.

Russia has sent two nuclear-powered submarines to patrol Eastern Mediterranean waters around Cyprus and enforce the island's right to explore for undersea oil and gas in its territorial seas, according to information from Defencenet.gr, citing a Russian FM spokesman.

Alexander Lukashevich said that Russia supports Cyprus and guarantees its security if it is threatened: "Under the UN Convention on International Law, among 162 other signatory states, including Cyprus, each state has sovereign rights in its EEZ for exploring, exploiting and protecting both live and non-living natural resources, including water, the seabed and subsoil," said Lukashevich in comments made on August 19th and reported by Defencenet.gr (in Greek).

So far there has been no reaction from the foreign ministry on reports that Russian submarines will be sent to protect Cyprus from any potential military threat from Turkey. A telephone call to the foreign ministry for comment has not yet been returned. A telephone call to the press attache at the Russian Embassy in Nicosia has also not yet been returned.

The submarines are due in early September and are being interpreted as a clear warning to Turkey to stay away from Noble Energy's drilling sites in Block 12. Noble is set to start exploring for undersea gas at the beginning of October along with Israeli energy company DELEK, which has reached an agreement with Noble Energy to share in its licensing deal with Cyprus, reported Globes.co.il.

It is a noteworthy coincidence that on the same day, Russia signs the contract to build three new Krivak IV class frigates for the Black Sea Fleet.