Turkey’s Eastern Mediterranean adventure is not about gas

Turkey’s foreign policy in the eastern Mediterranean is not driven by hydrocarbons, but by revisionist, geopolitical sovereignty ambitions, researchers Tziarras and Harchaoui said in an article on Tuesday. Developments in the eastern Mediterranean cannot be considered apart from the larger dynamics in the region, which constitute a clashing point for great-power interests, according to Tziarras and Harchaoui. The region’s vulnerability to conflicting interests surfaced following the war in Iraq, which reshaped the United States’ priorities around the world, they said. “Ankara is leveraging its various institutional, economic, and security ties with the West to climb the power ladder of the regional…