Turkey’s entangled (energy) security concerns and the Cyprus question in the Eastern Mediterranean

OpenAlex · İngilizce

This chapter provides a conceptual theoretical perspective by combining Regional Security Complex Theory (RSCT) and Securitization Theory to explain the ‘security constellations’ fostering energy securitization in the Eastern Mediterranean (EM). The RSCT’s territorial cartography of the world and its deterministic prospects for Turkey’s regional role is open to criticism. The chapter aims to explain the dynamics that have made energy discoveries in the EM and their potential export routes into security issues. It examines the EM as a unique region, where the European and the Middle Eastern regional complexes overlap. The chapter shows why and how Turkey’s ‘new’ Cyprus policy shifted to a conflictive pattern with a particular reference to the EM energy discoveries and their prospective transportation routes. It concludes that the European Union has a significant role to play by drawing on the lessons learned from its early years by transforming regional security conciliation to desecuritize energy projects in the EM.