Italy: The EastMed gas pipeline project is not a strategic choice

Italian Foreign Minister Luigi de Mayo said that the East Med gas pipeline project is not an option in the medium and long term, a project that Cyprus, Greece and Israel signed on the third of this month to export natural gas from Israel and Cyprus to Europe.

Minister de Mayo's statement came in an interview with the Anatolia Agency, in which he touched on several regional issues, including the "East Med" pipeline project, noting that the latter "cannot be an option in the medium and long term in terms of cost and construction."

The Anatolia Agency added that the project - for which the tripartite agreement was concluded in the Greek capital ethnically - is expected to face obstacles due to border disputes between the two parts of the island of Cyprus.

Turkish refused
Turkey has condemned the East Mid project agreement, considering it an useless step to marginalize it, stressing that "any project that does not take into account its rights is doomed to failure."

The "EastMed" pipeline project will extend over 1,900 km, and construction cost about six billion euros. Natural gas will be transferred starting 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 the Turkish measures in the eastern Mediterranean, after Turkey signed an agreement to demarcate the maritime borders with the Libyan National Accord government on November 27, 2019, which provides for the sharing of areas of maritime influence in the Mediterranean.