Turkey condemned the agreement to establish the signed "East Med" pipeline between Cyprus, Greece and Israel, and considered it a futile step to marginalize it, and also considered that any project that does not take into account its rights will lead to failure.

Hours after signing the agreement at a tripartite summit in Athens, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said that "the project of the gas pipeline in Athens is another useless step that attempts to marginalize Turkey and the Republic of North Cyprus in the region."

The Turkish Foreign Ministry added in a statement that closing the door of cooperation with Turkey and with the Turkish Cypriots is evidence that some countries work with "inadequate political accounts."

The statement stressed that any project that does not take into account the rights of Turkey, which has the longest coast in the eastern Mediterranean, will not succeed.

And in Athens, the agreement was approved at a tripartite summit described as historic, bringing together Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades, Prime Minister of Greece Kriakos Mitsotakis and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the latter considered that the agreement to transfer gas to Europe would turn Israel into a great power.

The "East Med" pipeline project will extend over 1900 km and cost about six billion euros to build, and it is scheduled to transfer natural gas from 2025 from Israel and Cyprus to Greece, Italy and other European markets.

Netanyahu had sought to accelerate the procedures for approving this agreement with a view to countering Turkish measures in the eastern Mediterranean, after Turkey signed an agreement to demarcate the maritime borders with the Libyan National Accord government headed by Fayez al-Sarraj on November 27, 2019, which provides for the establishment of an exclusive marine economic zone between Ankara and Tripoli.