US Under-Secretary of State Victoria Nuland put a tombstone to all scenarios about reviving the EastMed pipeline project as well as other pipelines in eastern Mediterranean Sea. visiting Greece and Cyprus, Nuland clearly expressed the US position that Europe must move away from the gas dependence of Russian gas as soon as possible and that the solution lies on the Liquefied Natural Gas -preferably from the USA, of course.
“We don’t need to wait for 10 years and spend billions of dollars on this stuff. We need to move the gas now. And we need to use gas today as a transition to a greener future. Ten years from now we don’t want a pipeline. Ten years from now we want to be green,” Nuland said in an exclusive interview with Greek daily kathimerini.
Stressing that “right now we need the gas,” the Undersecretary said “So we’ve got to use LNG and we’ve got to use electricity connections that we can do more quickly,” and called for the transfer of natural gas via LNG and the participation of Turkey in cooperation with Greece, Israel, Egypt and Cyprus in a wider context.
“The whole neighborhood needs energy and this part of the world can also be an energy engine for Northern Europe. And you see how quickly we have to make that transition away from Russia. Because they’re unreliable suppliers and they’re also an immoral partner as we see,” the US diplomat added.
She also referred to the importance of Alexandroupolis in northern Greece and the military bases used by the US Armed Forces in Greece, both to provide security in the region and for the transfer of military forces to Eastern Europe and Ukraine.
“The fact that we have a completely different, richer, deeper defense relationship with Greece than we had just a few years ago has changed not only what we can and are able to do together, but Greece’s ability to become a security provider throughout Southeastern Europe. Without that relationship we wouldn’t have been able to get more security support to Ukraine, literally within two days of Zelenskyy’s request,” she concluded.
During her visit in Cyprus, Nuland reiterated the US positions and said after a meeting with the President of the Republic, Nicos Anastasiadis.
Victoria “F the EU” Nuland says that Europe must buy expensive American LNG so it can prop up the US dollar, while many others in the world are de-dollarizing. There’s a good vassal state, have a cookie.
@Dejan, No, you are wrong. The USA has always been more forward thinking than the tunnel vision Europe. Europe is the one who caused this crisis by tethering themselves to unreliable Russia in the first place. If they had followed the US’s advice before, we would not be in the situation we are in. Europe being greedy and wanting cheap inferior gas came with a cost.
America is forward thinking for sure. This is just a geopolitical proxy war between the US and China about whose system will dominate the world: The American “international rules based” system vs. China’s belt and road. That is the geopolitical fight of our time. Just because the West occupies the moral high ground (doubtful after all the illegal wars they started) doesn’t mean it is going to win.
Europe was never allowed to move closer to Eurasia and its resources and markets of 3 billion people. Imagine, Germany moving closer to Russia and Eurasia and trading oil and gas for their high quality products an technology. Germany has always looked East. Also, you have to realize that the Euro became on par with the Dollar in total value of oil trade and international trade. The Euro became a big threat to the world’s reserve currency status of the dollar.
If Putin and Russia politically and economically survive this, expect more integration of Eurasia. And Europe will be locked out of that. China and Russia are already moving closer to each other and China is bluntly ignoring America’s sanctions.
This war could have been prevented if Zelenski had implemented the Minsk Agreement which was brokered by France and Germany. He never did despite his election promise to seek peace. France and Germany are still p*ssed off about this. This was America’s plan all along. What Russia does is wrong but Russia was given the option to do nothing and lose Ukraine or to attack Ukraine and find the wrath of the West. It was a very dangerous game to mess around in Ukraine and Ukraine is paying the price now. And Europe because the sanctions will hurt us more than they will hurt the US.
What this all shows is that Europe is still not boss on its own continent. These are the games empires play. Same as it ever was.
“This war could have been prevented if Zelenski had implemented the Minsk Agreement which was brokered by France and Germany.”
No, this war could have been prevented if Merkel allowed Ukraine to join NATO 18 years ago. I also do not see the US starting any illegal wars either, your media is out of touch or untruthful.
Well, you don’t let countries join NATO or the EU just like that. There are strict rules. And it would have brought instability to that country where 17% is ethnic Russian and there are millions of mixed marriages. Putin attacked Georgia in 2008 because creating a territorial dispute there would have prohibited Georgia from joining the alliance. The same thing would have happened in Ukraine.
US not starting illegal wars?
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was illegal. Not sanctioned by the UNSC and against international law.
NATO’s campaign against Yugoslavia was also illegal, not sanctioned by the UNSC and even against NATO own charter because Yugoslavia had not attacked any NATO country. “Humanitarian intervention” is not a legal reason to go to war. Even if there is a dictator somewhere, there is no legal basis to go to war if that country did not attack you. However bad it is that there is some dictator somewhere, invading countries for it is not a legal reason and actually a sliding slope.
The US has a long history of interfering in elections, coup d’etats, assassinations, regime change and plain war.
Why invade Iraq but not Saudi Arabia that is a dictatorship, oppresses human rights, invades other countries and bombs and starves its population? There are many other countries like that. Why don’t these countries get regime change, colour revolutions and invasion?
The reason is geopolitics. And the hypocrisy is great.
Now Putin uses the West’s playbook with his “denazification of Ukraine” as a reason. This is just his version of “WMD in Iraq” and “Milosevic kills Albanians”. And Ukraine has actually been shelling and killing people in Eastern Ukraine. Something the Minsk Agreement was supposed to stop. Something Zelenski did not implement.
That’s right Greece, keep obeying your masters in Washington and Brussels. Some day you may wake up to the fact that they don’t give a damn about you. If what the ECB, Schäuble, and Merde-kel have already done isn’t enough to convince you of that, then there is no hope. Stop wasting people’s time with this social justice and diversity, and immigration BS and wake up to reality. Yeah you really need immigrants since there are SOOOOO MANY jobs in Greece with no one to fill them, correct?
Thank goodness for France and America. They alleviate much of the heavy lifting to maintain international law should this Muslim dictatorship ignoring rules and borders make good on its bellicose threats amid endless saber rattling.
As for the decade of forced and needless punishing depression, future historians will be merciless and cruel to Angela and Wolfgang. Brexit exposes the obvious.
Even before Brexit, Greece has conducted itself admirably from a diplomatic standpoint, in accordance to international laws, establishing alliances, while building its military to ensure and maintain its sovereignty. Having cooperated with Germany and now America, whether fair or not, is in Greece’s interests. Just as it is in America’s interests to partner with Greece.
If America seeks oil from Iran, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia, now, they can also surely look at cooperating with a sanctioned and autocratic Turkey for their own interests sake too. This is sadly what the world has come down to, cooperating to harlot principle or rejecting being held hostage with conflict.
Just fill up the american purse
“called for the transfer of natural gas via LNG and the participation of Turkey in cooperation with Greece, Israel, Egypt and Cyprus in a wider context.”
Turkey? How can they possibly include this pirate? Are they crazy? No one wants them except the US who needs them in NATO, and even then they are sanctioned for buying S400s from Russia. Turkey? Is she off the wall nuts? That just isn’t going fly, they should send someone who knows the history and what they are doing. Last time they sent a little Jewish to negotiate away the name Macedonia, if it isn’t territory, resources, or loans that they seek to steal its even Greece’s very history!
Turkey = “geo-strategic position”