In Geopolitics This Week
East Timor Presses for Direct Gas Pipeline, Israel and Turkey Prepare to Restore Full Diplomatic Relations, The European Union Increases Involvement in the Balkans, and other stories.
East Timor Presses for Direct Gas Pipeline
The Greater Sunrise oil and gas field in the Timor Sea has long been the subject of exploration, controversy, and negotiations since its discovery in 1974. In particular, the question of where to liquefy the natural gas — converting it into shippable LNG — has been debated since Indonesia was forced out of East Timor in 1999.
The Greater Sunrise oil and gas field is located 150km south of East Timor and 450km north-west of Darwin, Australia. The oil and gas reserves found in the Greater Sunrise are estimated to contain millions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic centimetres of natural gas.
The government of East Timor wants liquefied natural gas infrastructure built in the country’s undeveloped south coast, and Dili holds a majority stake in the Greater Sunrise exploitation project through the state-owned company Timor Gap. Its equity partner and would-be project operator, Australian energy firm Woodside Energy, maintains that a pipeline to Darwin is the only commercially viable option.
East Timor’s president, José Ramos-Horta, has backed his Minister for Petroleum and warned that his government will seek Chinese support if Australia and Woodside Energy fail to back a proposal to build an LNG import facility on East Timor’s southern shore. Ramos-Horta said that East Timor would now favourably consider a partnership with Chinese investors if the Australian government and Woodside “refuse to invest in bringing gas via pipeline to Timor-Leste.”
East Timor’s Minister for Petroleum has instructed the Australian government that offshore gas located between the two countries must be piped to East Timor. The comments come at a sensitive time during tripartite negotiations over governance and production sharing arrangements between the two governments and Woodside.
Israel and Turkey Prepare to Restore Full Diplomatic Relations
Before Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan came to power, Israel and Turkey were strategic allies. The alliance with Turkey was one of the most important partnerships for Israel's national security. Relations between the countries were then intimate, and more importantly, relations between the Israeli security establishment and the Turkish military were strong and based on deep cooperation and common interests.
Soon after Erdogan ascended to the Turkish presidency, this alliance deteriorated rather quickly as a purge at the senior levels of the Turkish army severed longstanding ties with the Israeli military establishment. Ankara did so by identifying with the Hamas movement in Gaza, eventually leading to ambassadors being recalled from both capitals.
Now, Turkey and Israel have agreed to restore full diplomatic relations and return ambassadors to each other’s capitals. The announcement ends a four-year diplomatic crisis that soured relations between the two regional powers. Upgrading relations will contribute to deepening ties between the two peoples and open opportunities for further expanding political, military, economic, trade, and cultural cooperation. Improved trust comes after a civil aviation agreement was signed and the two sides agreed on increased alignment regarding regional counter-terrorism efforts.
Turkey is effectively seeking to reduce threatening conflicts and stimulate economic growth. Aware of Israel's power and influence, Turkey is looking to complement Israeli energy ambitions by making Turkey the centre of gas marketing between the Middle East and Europe. Growing security and intelligence cooperation between Turkey and Israel has intensified as both countries worked together to assist Azerbaijan conduct an effective military campaign against Armenia in 2020 using Turkish and Israeli military technologies.
The European Union Increases Involvement in the Balkans
This week saw Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo's Prime Minister Albin Kurti hosted by Brussels to restore dialogue between Pristina and Belgrade following a flare-up of tensions between the two. Tensions have risen over a dispute concerning license plates.
Pristina is attempting to exert increased influence over the ethnic Serb minority concentrated in the north of Kosovo. Serbia, which does not recognize Kosovo's independence, opposes the measures Pristina has taken. The two failed to reach a compromise in Brussels, but agreed to continue talks in the coming days.
Both Serbia and Kosovo are candidates to join the EU, and NATO's parallel commitments to the status quo in the Balkans is a powerful constraint on the resumption of more widespread conflict. Economic incentives to de-escalate by the EU are likely to remain more lucrative to Belgrade and Pristina than the political advantages of keeping tensions high.
The most likely scenario remains a stalemate, with EU-led dialogue stalling but the implementation of controversial policies being postponed. Nonetheless, the situation remains delicate as even without an immediate risk of escalation political conditions in the Balkans remain volatile.
Elsewhere in the West Balkans, Germany has redeployed troops as part of the EU's peacekeeping mission in Bosnia. This marks the first time that German forces deploy to the Western Balkans in a decade as instability from the war in Ukraine raises tensions elsewhere, and signals increased EU involvement in the Western Balkans.
Bosnia faces an assertive Bosnian-Serb separatist movement that threatens to upend the regional status quo built upon the Dayton Agreement. Bosnian-Serb separatist leader Milorad Dodik has said that German troops are not welcome in Bosnia and has previously expressed regret for agreeing to extend the mandate of the EUFOR peacekeeping mission. EUFOR's mandate runs out in November, when the UN Security Council will decide whether to extend the mission for another year. However, given the state of relations between the permanent veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council, agreement seems unlikely.