New energy politics in the Eastern Mediterranean: Turkey's potential to geostrategically and geopolitically change the region

Located in the middle of the Asian, European and African continents, the Eastern Mediterranean region has a central location that has preserved its historical importance for centuries and hosts important migration and trade routes. Energy studies carried out in the region in recent years have increased the importance of the Eastern Mediterranean and succeeded in bringing the region back to the center of diplomacy. Due to the characteristics of the Eastern Mediterranean region, the presence of various difficulties in terms of extracting the discovered reserves, transporting them to the markets, and the availability of a significant amount of energy have attracted global and regional powers to the region. This attractiveness of the Eastern Mediterranean region has added a new problem to the power struggles of global and regional actors for centuries, causing chronic problems to become deeper and more complex. In this study, the importance of the Eastern Mediterranean is discussed historically, geopolitically and geographically, and regional developments from military policies to economic relations have been examined. The potential of the Eastern Mediterranean to become an energy hub after energy discoveries, geopolitical theories, the incompatibility of maritime jurisdictions and the energy profiles of the regional states, as well as the threats and opportunities created by hydrocarbon energy reserves, and their possible effects on the current geopolitics of the Eastern Mediterranean region have been studied.