Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yıldız has said that an energy alliance between Turkey and Israel is out of the question while the violence in the Gaza strip continues, ‘Hurriyet’ reports.
“If we build a natural gas pipeline from Israel or the eastern Mediterranean under these circumstances, the blood of innocent infants and mothers, not natural gas, would flow through it,” Turkey’s Energy Minister said, following a meeting with Maltese Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi on 4th August.
“Therefore, I want to share with the public that there is no possibility for us to carry out this project [under the current circumstances] right now and this issue can only be discussed after a permanent cease-fire and an end to the cruelty in Palestine [has been implemented],” he added.
Yıldız said that a potential energy partnership “could be talked about after everything has stabilized and calmed down,” however, he still stressed that “[Turkey’s] door will be closed until that time.”
Israel has been working on several alternatives for transporting and commercialising its newly discovered gas reserves. Turkey would have been an alternative route for Israel to transportation gas to Europe and several different locations in the world, however, the relations between the two countries have deteriorated since the Mavi Marmara incident in 2010.
The world’s largest offshore gas field discovered in the past ten years, named Leviathan, was found in 2010 located on Israel’s Mediterranean coast. Israel hopes to gain greater energy dependence with this discovery.
