GPI Global Policy Institute

On February 18 Bay Atlantic University and the Global Policy Institute held a joint event titled Can We Avoid a New Conflict in the Eastern Mediterranean?

The panelists included:

Ambassador Cagatay Erciyes, Director General for Bilateral Political & Maritime -Aviation-Border Affairs, Member of the Negotiation Team  for Maritime Boundary Delimitation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Turkey

Arnold Dupuy, Adjunct Professor, Bay Atlantic University

Paul Michael Wihbey, Executive Director, Institute for the Geopolitics of Energy & Strategic Resources

Paolo von Schirach, President, Global Policy Institute and Chair of Political Science and International Relations, Bay Atlantic University, moderated the event.

Turkey, Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots, Israel, Lebanon, Egypt, Greece and Libya share the Eastern Mediterranean. Russia has a naval presence. America, as the leader of the NATO Alliance, has enduring interests in preserving peace and stability in the region.

Ambassador Cagatay Erciyes, with the aid of several illustrative slides, explained how the potential for conflicts rests in part on lack of agreement on exclusive economic zones boundaries claimed by Greece and Turkey and by the discovery of considerable off shore energy resources, (mostly natural gas), near Cyprus, an island shared by Greek and Turkish Cypriots, whose final status has yet to be determined.

Both Arnold Dupuy and Paul Michael Wihbey argued that, as there are different interpretations of the applicable Law of the Sea held by different governments, the US, a key ally of both Turkey and Greece, should try to bring all the parties together with the goal of reaching mutually agreeable compromises. All the panelists agreed that compromises are possible. They further agreed that strong US leadership could make a real difference.