Greece

“There’s no doubt that, just as in the 1990s, both countries were united this year by bonds of common suffering, allowing the governments to move ahead with rapprochement and providing the legitimacy for it to be accepted,”

But Mete Hatay, a Cyprus-born senior research consultant with Peace Research Institute Oslo who has long studied the conflict, says indications are that the countries will not discuss Cyprus even as they intend to "move further with their bilateral relations."

​"The unfortunate dual calamities hitting Turkey and Greece in the first half of 2023 in the forms of a devastating earthquake and horrendous train crash respectively, revived memories of the summer of 1999, when two major destructive earthquakes hit Istanbul and Athens.

​Recent discovery of hydrocarbon has exacerbated existing geopolitical tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean.

​As refugees and other migrants arrived in increased numbers to Europe during the summer of 2015, many citizens across Europe mobilized to provide basic assistance in different ways along the route: from food, shelter, clothes, to access to wifi and charging stations for mobile phones.

​In a recent article entitled "Energy and Sovereignty in the new Geopolitics of the Eastern Mediterranean" published in the Oxford Energy Forum, PRIO Cyprus Centre researcher Zenonas Tziarras asks how much of the recent crises can really be attributed to hydrocarbons, given other underlying issues and a history of regional tensions.

​PRIO's security and humanitarianism research milieus join forces to explore one of today's most relevant issues.

Full​ article here ​

During the International Seminar-Book Presentation: The Future of Natural Gas: Market and Geopolitics, organised by The International Affairs Institute (IAI) and the OCP Policy Center, Rabat 27.

Read more about the cultural background for the riots in Greece in this op ed in the International Herald Tribune.