Does it come to a UN vote(before the long awaited Arab vote) regarding the mediterranean sea drilling rights spoken of in Psalm 83?

-  Psalm 83 'Crafty Counsel' looks to come to a head before the UN vote on palestinians.

Erdogan threatens Cyprus over offshore drilling

Turkish PM Erdogan threatens military action against Nicosia after it goes ahead with maritime mineral exploration despite Ankara's objections

Published: 09.19.11,  / Israel News

Turkey-Cyprus tensions nearing boiling point? Cyprus announced Monday that it has contracted US-based Noble Energy to do exploratory drilling for oil and gas off the coast of Cyprus despite the area being the center of a dispute it has with Turkey.

Turkey had warned Cyprus against any such move in the past and in a significant escalation of tensions, Ankara said that it would send warships to protect its claims to submarine resources in the area.

 Israel began drilling Monday(today 09/19/11) in the Tamar Field. 

Here's the update:

Spokesman: Greek PM urges Cyprus calm in call with Erdogan  By REUTERS
09/26/2011 

ATHENS - Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou called for calm over Cyprus in a phone conversation with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on Monday(09/26/11), a Greek government spokesman said, as regional tensions rise over oil exploration.
"Two hours ago, the prime minister had a telephone conversation with Mr. Erdogan," government spokesman Ilias Mosialos told reporters. "The prime minister said there should be self-constraint and calm" over Cyprus, Mosialos said.
A Turkish oil exploration vessel left the Aegean port of Izmir on Friday to carry out surveys off northern Cyprus amid tensions with Greek Cypriots on the divided island over rights to hydrocarbon reserves in the eastern Mediterranean. 

Here's from my post in July 2011:

Are we approaching a United Nations Amendment where the United States votes against Israel?

 

ISRAEL: Natural gas deposits stir waters with Lebanon July 27,2011

Everyone involved needs to agree which waters are whose to explore and exploit for natural resources. Israel and Egypt sorted out the borders in their peace treaty, and each worked out their marine affairs with Cyprus, the neighbor across the basin. But Lebanon and Israel have no agreed border on land, much less at sea, and for now, they have no chance of reaching a bilateral agreement on the matter.

A country can claim 200 nautical miles off its shores as its exclusive economic zone. In case of close neighbors and an overlap, an equidistant point must be found and agreed to establish such a zone. When Israel and Cyprus divvied up the waters between them, Cyprus said this didn't conflict with an agreement signed with Lebanon previously.

In the gas game, Israel was well ahead of Lebanon, which last year finally passed a new energy law that paved the way for exploration. Earlier this year, the Lebanese government signed an agreement with a French company to prepare a tender in partnership with a Norwegian program that was to be ready right about now.

Israel probably thought it was ahead in the borders game too, but Lebanon threw in a surprise a while back: Rather than ratifying a 2007 agreement with Cyprus, it submitted its own proposal to the United Nations.

Israel challenged the Lebanese proposal, saying it dips significantly farther south than it should, and scrambled to call its turf, submitting to the U.N. its own maritime-boundaries and economic-zone proposals.

In the best of all worlds, Israel and Lebanon would reach an agreement in bilateral negotiations. That's still a while away, so, in the meantime, someone will have to decide.

The U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon has a marine contingent, but marking maritime borders is not within its mandate. Although reluctant to intervene, the United Nations may ultimately have to.

If unresolved, the dispute is likely to wind up before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, established by a 1982 U.N. convention that has become customary law, including for countries that did not sign it, such as Israel.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is also involved in the dispute and reportedly backs the Lebanese proposal (though Israel's foreign minister dismissed this). Entrusted with this headache is American diplomat Frederic Hof, who has good knowledge of the issue as well as of mapping affairs. Israeli media reported that Hof will head for Beirut soon for discussions. 

U.S. abstaining?

U.S. denies Hof visiting Beirut July 22, 2011 

The Daily Star Lebanon

BEIRUT: The U.S. Embassy denied media reports Friday that the deputy to Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell, Frederic Hof planned to visit Beirut to follow up on the Lebanon-Israel maritime borders dispute.

“Hof has no plans to visit Lebanon at present,” a statement from the embassy said.

“It is entirely normal in the practice of international boundary-making that their claims differ,” the statement said. “Numerous countries have overlapping EEZ(Exclusive Economic Zone) claims, but almost nowhere is it a cause for conflict.”

“The United States has not and will not endorse either Israel or Lebanon's claim. We are not a party to this issue, which must be resolved diplomatically by the parties themselves,” Friday’s statement said.

Lebanon’s declared EEZ is said to contain billions of cubic meters of fossil fuel and be worth an estimated $6 billion and Lebanese ministers say that Israel’s recent border demarcation infringes on 860 square kilometers of sea containing oil and gas reserves belonging to Lebanon.

The U.N. is said to be ready to intervene to resolve the maritime border issue, in order to allow each country to legitimately commence fossil fuel exploration.

Israel and Lebanon are technically in a state of war and do not have diplomatic relations.

 

Today(09/26/11):

Turkish Seismic Research Ship in Cyprus EEZ

Mon, 26/09/2011 

Turkish seismic research ship K. Piri Reis is deep in Cyprus' Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) just off Pissouri and Kouklia, according to real-time tracking on MarineTraffic.com.

The ship has encroached on Block 1 of the EEZ, and has moved into the southern coast although it had been expected to only explore off the north coast of the island. This has raised new questions about just how far Turkey is willing to go in its attempt to claim rights over Cyprus' potential undersea gas-and-oil reserves.

‘We have rights on all sides of the island and we put forth that we can give the authority to any company in any region to explore natural gas’ said Turkish-Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu.

According to Prof. Dr Huseyin Avni Benli, director of Dokuz Eylul University's Naval Sciences and Technology Institute which owns Piri Reis, the vessel is expected to reach its research area in the afternoon and begin seismic studies there. This follows an agreement between Turkey and the political leadership of the unilaterally-declared 'TRNC' which dispute the government's decision to go ahead with offshore gas drilling operations and signed a maritime border agreement last week.

The agreement is the first step in a series of measures Turkey said it would take if the government proceeds with offshore gas drilling operations which started last week. Turkey then sent K. Piri Reis to start seismic research and explore for hydrocarbons in the area. It has also hired a ship from Norwegian company Veritas to start exploration.

Ankara threatened an arms build-up in the Eastern Mediterranean, saying that it would increase its naval presence, and rousing Greece, Israel, Russia and Cyprus to take a united defensive military position over the island's sovereign rights under the International Law of the Sea. Turkey has not signed this UN treaty, which sets out the conditions that each country can use to delimit its EEZ.

Greece is set to send F16 fighter aircraft to Israel in mid-October for joint exercises with Israeli F-16 squadrons, says a report on Defencenet.gr. The combined force of the two airforces would create a 'steel vise' in the Eastern Mediterranean to act as a deterrent to any military threats from Turkey, said an analyst. Meanwhile, Ankara said it has sent more frigates to patrol the area off Cyprus' coast.

Escalating tensions have increased the potential for a military incident like a dogfight in the air or a clash at sea, with Turkey and Israel ready to challenge each other at any moment. Relations between the former allies have rapidly unravelled in the months since Israeli special forces killed nine Turkish aid activists at sea on their way to take supplies to the Gaza Strip in May 2010.
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said that Israel's refusal to apologise over the killings - which happened in international waters - was casus belli and that he would send more Turkish navy ships to the seas off Israel, Lebanon and Gaza.
But these threats and other reports of possible military action have not stopped Noble Energy which has an exploratory license for Block 12 in Cyprus' exclusive economic zone that experts say could contain 10 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. According to energy minister Solon Kassinis, drilling is going according to plan and there should be results in two to three months.

 

In August I wrote about the New Moon possibly being the time for war because of strategic analysis. We're @ New Moon again:  

CURRENT MOON

lunar phase

Right on Israel's High Holy days

They were attacked on Yom Kippur in 1973.

Do they do a Pre-emptive strike or no?

 

God Bless,

gail