Incumbent Prime Minister Ersin Tatar was elected as the new president of Turkish Cyprus in a run-off election held last week. Tatar’s National Unity Party favors Turkish nationalism on the island.

The respite in tensions between Greece and Turkey as a result of Ankara’s withdrawal of its seismic survey ship Oruc Reis from contested areas in the eastern Mediterranean for “maintenance purposes” has proved to be short-lived.

The European Council this month held a special summit to discuss a number of issues. Among them was the EU’s approach to Turkey-Greece relations.

The Azeri-Armenian military confrontation that broke out last week contains the risks of further escalation because Azerbaijan seems to be militarily better prepared than in previous rounds.

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.