Jean-Loup Samaan

The East Mediterranean Triangle at Crossroads Jean-Loup Samaan

For years, the Israel-Turkey partnership was believed to be an anchor of stability in the troubled Middle East. For the United States the two regional players were supposed to pave the way to a regional system, but the collapse of their bilateral relation over the last years has put an end to these expectations. As a result of this crisis between Ankara and Jerusalem, the competition in the East Mediterranean region evolved significantly. Whereas Turkey increased its inflammatory rhetoric against Israel, the latter counterbalanced Turkey's position by strengthening ties with two rivals of Ankara: Greece and Cyprus. As Jean-Loup Samaan explains in this Letort Paper, these power plays have major ramifications. The perilous zero-sum game which is taking place in the Mediterranean impacts bilateral relations between all the stakeholders, not only at the military but at the economic level as well. It also jeopardizes the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) policies in the region...