Turkey turns down Israeli offer to build gas pipeline
“Israel has made a bid to build a pipeline to Turkey within the last two weeks,” the Hurriyet quoted the official as saying. “But we have a policy regarding Israel and the claims that Turkey leans towards this idea is not true.”
The pipeline would allow Israel to sell gas to Europe, but the Turkish government has not given a response because of the tensions between the countries.
This follows reports from Yediot Ahronot that two Israelis held two meetings in Turkey with the country's energy ministry officials in order to present the offer. The story was reported in the Turkish daily Vatan on Thursday, according to the report.I think that's called cutting off your nose to spite your face....
Labels: Leviathon well, natural gas, Turkey
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:50 PM
2 Comments:
Maybe it's just as well that the Turks stopped the idea from the beginning. A pipeline through Turkey would give them the ability to shut it off at any time. Since the Islamist takeover, has Turkey shown anything to establish any degree of trust from Israel?
While apparently a much more expensive solution than a land pipeline, Israel maybe should instead consider building a Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) onshore plant in Israel, with the resulting product then being sent on the high seas by ship, Israeli or other, to markets anywhere in the world. Such plants and ships are well established current technology. This would prevent any other countries, Turk, Arab or otherwise, from having the ability to stop Israeli production and sales at any time.
There are Australian and other Western energy corporations with whom Israel could negotiate a mutually beneficial partnership WITH the vital factors of reliability and trust.
(Here's some interesting information in that regard.)
That is probably for the best. It is too easy for terrorists or anti-Israeli, anti-Jewish Islamic states along the way to disturb such a pipeline. Not to mention that the destination nation Turkey, is perhaps vying to be the leader of such nations.
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