At an informal meeting in Berlin late last month, EU foreign ministers debated the Turkish-Greek tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean. At the heart of the issue is Turkey’s initiative to drill for oil and gas in a disputed maritime jurisdiction area that it considers to be its own.

When Turkey’s military assistance helped Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA) push back Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army and change the course of events in the field, Ankara thought that the new power balance in its favor would become permanent.

A controversy that has been on Turkey’s political agenda for decades is now disposed of, but debates on it and its international implications are likely to continue for some more time.

Kurds live mainly in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. There are also scattered Kurdish minority communities in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia and some Central Asian countries, but they are too small for any political role in these countries.