On Thursday, Greece, Cyprus, and Israel, signed a deal that will create a huge pipeline to ship gas from the eastern Mediterranean to the rest of Europe in spite of Turkey’s hostility to the deal. The move comes in an effort to block Turkey’s previous deal with Libya that was aimed at expanding the Muslim country’s claims over a large area of the sea.

Turkey, who has been a long-time aggressor to all three states involved in the deal attempted to recently blockade Cyprus and chased off Israeli vessels from Cypriot waters.

The pipeline, which looks to be some 2,000-kilometers (1,200-miles) long, is expected to transport between 9 and 12 billion cubic meters of gas a year from offshore reserves held by Israel and Cyprus to Greece. The gas will then be shipped from Greece to Italy and other southeastern European countries.

The deal was signed by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades in Athens.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke about the alliance: “The alliance is of enormous importance to the state of Israel’s energy future and its development into an energy power and also from the point of view of stability in the region.”

According to sources in the Israeli media the cost of the project from the eastern Mediterranean to Italy is estimated at 6.0 billion euros ($6.7 billion).

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)