ATHENS: Greece is on a diplomatic push to isolate traditional rival Turkey as tension rises between the two NATO allies over energy exploration and support for opposing factions in war-torn Libya, say analysts.
On Sunday, Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias embarked on a tour of eastern Libya, Egypt and Cyprus, seeking support against Turkey’s contentious maritime and military deal with the embattled UN-backed government in Tripoli.
Hours later, the Greek prime minister’s office announced that Athens would on January 2 host the signing of EastMed, a huge pipeline project with Cyprus and Israel to ship gas from the eastern Mediterranean to Europe.
“It’s the first time in 20 years that we’ve seen such (Greek diplomatic) activity,” Sotiris Serbos, an international politics specialist at Democritus University in Thrace, told Athens municipal radio.
Athens was alarmed when in late November Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signed a security and military cooperation deal with UN-recognized Libyan Prime Minister Fayez Al-Sarraj.
Greece took particular exception to the agreement on maritime jurisdiction, which it said ignored the maritime boundaries of Crete. In retaliation, Greece expelled the Libyan ambassador.
Analysts in Greece say Turkey’s recent rapprochement with Libya is aimed at shoring up a rare regional ally in Tripoli’s Government of National Accord (GNA).
But they say Turkey is also trying to avoid being shut out of the gas exploration scramble in the region.
Libya has been mired in chaos since a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed dictator Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
The GNA has suffered military setbacks against eastern-based strongman Khalifa Haftar.
“Alliances create counter-alliances,” Antonis Klapsis, an assistant professor of diplomacy at the University of Peloponnese, told Greek state TV ERT.
While Greece usually defers to the EU on major diplomatic initiatives, this time it is taking the lead, having forged ties with Egypt and Israel, as well as traditional ally Cyprus.
“We can go at it alone — but we won’t be alone,” Foreign Minister Dendias told Open TV Monday.
Greece, after also securing EU backing on the issue, is now speeding up talks with Egypt on an exclusive economic zone to counter the Turkey-Libya deal.
For Alexis Papachelas, executive editor of liberal daily Kathimerini, this is a “moment of truth” in relations with decades-old rival Turkey.
“The early months of 2020 will be tough for Greek-Turkish relations,” Papachelas wrote in an opinion piece Sunday.
“The moment of truth seems to be upon us as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appears determined...to push Ankara’s territorial claims in the Aegean Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean,” he added.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is scheduled to visit the White House on January 7.
While US diplomats have criticized the Turkey-Libya deal, US President Donald Trump has often toed a different line when it comes to Erdogan.
“It is the sort of situation where you find out who your real friends and allies are,” notes Papachelas.
The EastMed project is designed to make Cyprus, Greece and Israel key links in Europe’s energy supply chain — and thwart Turkey’s effort to bolster its presence in the eastern Mediterranean.
Its backers plan to have the 2,000-kilometer (1,200-mile) pipeline transfer between nine and 12 billion cubic meters a year from offshore gas reserves between Israel and Cyprus to Greece — and from there to Italy and other southeastern European countries.
“It is really important that the countries showed they can react quickly against Turkey’s provocative stance,” Greek government spokesman Stelios Petsas told Open TV on Sunday.
Turkey already has ships searching for oil and gas off Cyprus, which has fueled tension with the European Union.
Erdogan, who has called into question decades-old sovereignty treaties with Greece, said Sunday that Turkey “no longer had the luxury” to be silent, or coy on the issue.
“Greece and countries supporting it were for a long time making preparations to ensure Turkey could not take any steps in the sea,” Erdogan said.
“Those who have sovereignty in the Aegean, and prepare projects with their eyes on Turkey’s rights with islands, islets and rocks that do not belong to them should know the space is not empty.”
Greece pushes back at Turkey over energy race, Libya: analysts
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Greece pushes back at Turkey over energy race, Libya: analysts
- The Greek FM embarked on a tour of eastern Libya, Egypt and Cyprus
- He is seeking support against Turkey’s contentious maritime and military deal with the embattled UN-backed government in Tripoli
Trump says Microsoft is in talks to acquire TikTok
Microsoft and TikTok did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for a comment outside regular business hours.
Trump has previously said that he was in discussions with several parties about purchasing TikTok and expects to make a decision on the app’s future within the next 30 days.
The app, which has about 170 million American users, was briefly taken offline just before a law requiring ByteDance to either sell it on national security grounds or face a ban took effect on Jan. 19.
Trump, after taking office on Jan. 20, signed an executive order seeking to delay by 75 days the enforcement of the law that was put in place after US officials warned that there was a risk of Americans’ data being misused under ByteDance.
EU, Britain to face off in post-Brexit fishing battle case
The bitter arbitration case over sandeels is seen as a bellwether for other potential litigation between London and Brussels in a perennial hot-bed industry, experts said.
Tuesday’s clash at the Hague-based Permanent Court for Arbitration also marks the first courtroom trade battle between the 27-member trading bloc and Britain since it left the EU in 2020.
Brussels has dragged London before the PCA following a decision last year to ban all commercial fishing of sandeels in British waters because of environmental concerns.
London in March ordered all fishing to stop, saying in court documents that “sandeels are integral to the marine ecosystem of the North Sea.”
Because of climate change and commercial fishing, the tiny fish “risked further decline... as well as species that are dependent on sandeels for food including fish, marine mammals, and seabirds.”
This included vulnerable species like the Atlantic puffin, seals, porpoises and other fish like cod and haddock, Britain’s lawyers said.
But Brussels is accusing London of failing to keep to commitments made under the landmark Trade and Cooperation Agreement, which gave the EU access to British waters for several years during a transition period after London’s exit.
Under the deal, the EU’s fishing fleet retained access to British waters for a five-and-half-year transition period, ending mid-2026. After that, access to respective waters will be decided in annual negotiations.
“The EU does not call into question the right of the UK to adopt fisheries management measures in pursuit of legitimate conservation objectives,” Brussels’ lawyers said in court papers.
“Rather, this dispute is about the UK’s failure to abide by its commitments under the agreement.”
London failed to apply “evidence-based, proportionate and non-discriminatory measures when restricting the right to EU vessels to full access to UK waters to fish sandeel,” the EU lawyers said.
Brussels is backing Denmark in the dispute, whose vessels take some 96 percent of the EU’s quota for the species, with sandeel catches averaging some £41.2 million (49 million euros) annually.
“The loss of access to fisheries in English waters could affect relations with the EU, including Denmark, as they are likely to lead to employment losses and business losses overseas,” the EU’s lawyers warned.
The case will now be fought out over three days at the PCA’s stately headquarters at the Peace Palace in The Hague, which also houses the International Court of Justice.
Set up in 1899, the PCA is the world’s oldest arbitral tribunal and resolves disputes between countries and private parties through referring to contracts, special agreements and various treaties, such as the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
The EU’s decision to open a case before the PCA “will not have been taken lightly and reflected the political importance it places on fishing rights,” writes Joel Reland, a senior researcher at UK in a Changing Europe, a London-based think tank.
In a number of “influential member states — including France, the Netherlands and Denmark — fishing rights are an important issue, with many communities relying on access to British waters for their livelihoods.”
“This dispute is an early warning that the renegotiation of access rights, before the TCA fisheries chapter expires in June 2026, will be critical for the EU,” said Reland.
A ruling in the case is expected by the end of March.
Trump says will build ‘Iron Dome’ missile shield
- The system “will be made right here in the USA,” the president said
MIAMI: President Donald Trump said Monday he would sign an executive order to start building an “Iron Dome” air defense system for the United States, like the one that Israel has used to intercept thousands of rockets.
“We need to immediately begin the construction of a state-of-the-art Iron Dome missile defense shield, which will be able to protect Americans,” Trump told a Republican congressional retreat in Miami.
Trump said the system “will be made right here in the USA.”
Speaking on the day new Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took office, Trump said it was one of four orders he would sign, along with one that would “get transgender ideology the hell out of our military.”
During the 2024 election campaign Trump repeatedly promised to build a version of Israel’s Iron Dome system for the United States
But he ignored the fact that the system is designed for short-range threats, making it ill-suited to defending against intercontinental missiles that are the main danger to the United States.
Trump however again sung the praises of the Israeli system, which Israel has used to shoot down rockets fired by its regional foes Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon during the war sparked by the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
“They knock down just about every one of them,” Trump said. “So I think the United States is entitled to that.”
Ukraine’s Zelensky says war means mobilization rules cannot be changed
- Members of some units in areas deemed critical to ensuring Ukraine’s defensive lines have not enjoyed any leave since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday that the rigours of nearly three years of war did not allow for changes in mobilization rules because if soldiers left for home en masse, Russian President Vladimir Putin “will kill us all.”
Zelensky told Italian journalist Cecilia Sala, who was released this month after being detained for 21 days in Iran, that the toll of war on Ukrainians and their families underscored the need to bring the conflict rapidly to an end.
Parliament approved new mobilization rules last year to boost numbers of those at the front, but Ukraine’s fighting forces are still badly outnumbered by their Russian adversaries.
“The wartime situation calls for mobilization of people and all the resources we have in the country. Absolutely all of them,” Zelensky said in the interview, excerpts of which were posted on the president’s Telegram channel.
“And, unfortunately, that is the challenge of this war and that is why we have to speed things up to the maximum to end it, to oblige Russia to end this war,” Zelensky said.
“Today, we are defending ourselves. If tomorrow, for instance, half the army heads home, we really should have surrendered on the very first day. That is how it is. If half the army goes home, Putin will kill us all.”
The legislation approved last year, lowered the age of mobilization for Ukrainian men from 27 to 25 years, narrowed exemptions and imposed penalties on evaders.
Zelensky and others have rejected suggestions by politicians in the United States, Ukraine’s biggest Western backer, that the draft age be lowered further on grounds that Ukrainian forces at the front are not sufficiently well armed.
Members of some units in areas deemed critical to ensuring Ukraine’s defensive lines have not enjoyed any leave since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022.
Russian forces failed in their initial advance on the capital Kyiv, but have since focused their efforts on securing all of Donbas, made up of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, in Ukraine’s east.
Russian forces occupy about 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory and have been recording their fastest gains since the invasion in their advance in the east, while holding part of four Ukrainian regions.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
US Justice Dept officials involved in Trump prosecutions fired
WASHINGTON: The US Justice Department fired a number of officials on Monday who were involved in the criminal prosecutions of President Donald Trump.
“Acting attorney general James McHenry made this decision because he did not believe these officials could be trusted to faithfully implement the president’s agenda because of their significant role in prosecuting the president,” a Justice Department official said.
The official did not specify now many people had their employment terminated, but US media outlets said it was more than a dozen and several were career prosecutors with the Justice Department.
Special Counsel Jack Smith, who brought two federal cases against Trump, resigned earlier this month.
Smith charged Trump with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election and mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House.
Neither case came to trial and Smith — in line with a long-standing Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president — dropped them both after the Republican won November’s presidential election.
The firing of the Justice Department officials involved in prosecuting Trump was not unexpected.
Trump had vowed before the election to fire Smith “on day one” and accused the Justice Department under Democratic president Joe Biden of conducting a “political witchhunt” against him.
In his inauguration speech, Trump said he would end the “vicious, violent, and unfair weaponization of the Justice Department and our government.”
In his final report, Smith said Trump would have been convicted for his “criminal efforts” to retain power after the 2020 election if the case had not been dropped.
Trump was charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding — the session of Congress held to certify Biden’s win that was violently attacked on January 6, 2021 by a mob of Trump supporters.
Smith also prepared a report into Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents but it is being withheld because charges are pending against two of his former co-defendants.
Trump faces separate racketeering charges in Georgia over his efforts to subvert the election results in the southern state, but the case will likely be frozen while he is in office.
Trump was convicted in New York in May of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to a porn star. The judge who presided over the case gave him an “unconditional discharge” which carries no jail time, fine or probation.
