Headlines

• Turkey's ruling party wins most seats but falls short of majority

• Noble, Delek say Cyprus gas field is commercially viable, plan exports to Egypt

• Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci sparks hope of Cyprus unity

Details

Turkey's ruling party wins most seats but falls short of majority

Turkey's ruling party won the most seats in Sunday's parliamentary elections, but it fell short of the majority needed to rule without forming a coalition with other parties.

With 98% of votes in Turkey's parliamentary elections tabulated, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) won 41% of the vote, or 259 of the 550 seats up for grabs, semi-official Anadolu news agency reported.

Erdogan's party had looked to win 330 seats, which would allow it to carry out a referendum for constitutional changes without needing votes from other parties.

Having fallen short of that majority, Erdogan's proposal to shift power from the Prime Minister's Office to the president is in doubt now.

The AKP, according to some analysts, could also call for early parliamentary elections, which would once again raise the potential for more political turmoil and economic instability.

Erdogan's unpopularity may have contributed to a historic finish for the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party, the HDP.

The HDP was seeking at least 10% of the vote to gain seats in parliament. Early polls put the party within the margin error, but the HDP appeared poised to easily surpass that threshold, with about 12% of the vote.

"The HDP's entry has given Turkey breathing time to find a solution to the anomaly ... Erdogan has been stretching and stressing the system," said Suat Kiniklioglu, a former member of the AKP. [Source: CNN]

With this result the American Greater Middle East Initiative project has fell through. Without a wide support to Erdogan it may prove to be more difficult to bring this project to life.

Noble, Delek say Cyprus gas field is commercially viable, plan exports to Egypt

The Aphrodite natural gas field off Cyprus is commercially viable, the partners behind the project said yesterday, and plans call for the production of eight billion cubic meters a year and construction of a pipeline to Egypt.
Texas-based Noble Energy and Israel’s Delek Group discovered the deposit, estimated to hold 128 BCM of gas, in Cyprus’s offshore Block 12 in 2011. It also contains nine million barrels of condensate.

Noble is the project operator with a 70% stake. Delek holds the remaining 30% through two subsidiaries, but is in early-stage talks to buy an additional 19.9% for about $155 million.

Noble and Delek are also seeking to sell gas to Egypt. A group of private customers in Egypt agreed in March to buy at least $1.2 billion of natural gas from Israel’s offshore Tamar field, which is controlled by the two companies.

They have also been negotiating two larger export deals with foreign operators of liquefied natural gas plants in Egypt to sell them gas from their bigger offshore field, Leviathan, but those deals have been on hold until Israel’s Antitrust Authority makes a final decision on whether to break the two companies’ control over most of Israel’s gas resources. [Source: Haaretz]

Israel would never exist if our Khilafah "Caliphate" existed. Israel strengthens thanks to tumor like rulers on the head of the Islamic Ummah. Our wealth and underground resources are being exploited grace of agent rulers.

Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci sparks hope of Cyprus unity

Two ageing Cypriot politicians chatting amicably on a terrace along the pedestrianised Ledra Street in Nicosia’s old town would not typically cause a stir.

But when Nicos Anastasiades, the Greek Cypriot president, last month sat at an outdoor cafe with his recently elected Turkish Cypriot counterpart Mustafa Akinci in northern Nicosia for a cup of coffee, the symbolism was electrifying.

It marked the first time leaders from the two communities that have shared an island split for 40 years by a bitter ceasefire had ever crossed the “green line” together. The two then crossed over the UN-administered buffer zone to the southern side of the divided capital to repeat the gesture. The giddy reception they received on both sides of the Ledra checkpoint verged on the euphoric.

There have been repeated reunification false dawns, notably in 2004, when then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan brokered a compromise only to see it overwhelmingly rejected in a referendum by Greek Cypriots.

Hopes rose again two years ago with the election of Mr Anastasiades, one of the few prominent Greek Cypriot politicians to back the Annan plan. But talks froze in October when Ankara sent a warship into Cypriot waters.
Most people are starting to regard this as a last opportunity after so many lost hopes, after so many disappointments. [Source: Financial Times]

The 60-year-old Cyprus dispute will never be solved until USA gets an airbase on the island or the Khilafah "Caliphate" is re-established to bring the much-needed harmony between the two populations removing their prejudices against one another.