The Eastern Mediterranean Crisis: Geopolitical Competition on EU’s Southern Neighbourhood and Turkish Foreign Policy-Making

The Eastern Mediterranean region has recently become the one-of-main agenda of littoral countries' foreign policy due to considerable natural gas deposits among the overlapped exclusive economic zones (EEZ) between Turkey, the Republic of Cyprus (RoC), and Greece. The regional crisis between the Turks and Greeks community over the disputed Cyprus island is still present and it became an international crisis with the accession of RoC and failed accession of Turkey to the EU. Doubtless, the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in Turkey and its policymaker's radical developments of political acts within the last 20 years to the reflection of EU's southern Neighborhood countries have perceived that Turkey has an aggressive attitude for the stability of the region. Nonetheless, the lack of political compromise among them engendered the Turkish isolation and paved the way for littoral countries' cooperation over the massive natural reserves. However, This study investigates the Turkish perspective to reach the recent political development with Libya and intensifies its desire to be part of the division of natural deposits over the critical semi-closed sea with the rule of law. Moreover, to uncover the axis shift of Turkish policy-making perspective within its uncontrolled internal and external conditions with the neighboring countries.