Turkish energy minister highlights exploration efforts in the Mediterranean

The Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Alparslan Bayraktar, emphasized Turkey's hydrocarbon exploration efforts in the Mediterranean during a speech at an AKP conference in Trabzon on Sunday.

"Turkey must be a country that seeks, discovers, and produces its own natural gas and oil. When we started in 2016, we declared that, from now on, using our own ships, we would not leave a single area unexplored in the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and the Blue Homeland," Bayraktar stated.

The energy minister further noted that Turkey carried out these explorations independently, without the participation of foreign nations, which he claims aligned themselves with Greece.

"Everyone left us alone in the Mediterranean," he said.

"They told us, 'We are not part of these explorations with Turkey. This is Greece's maritime jurisdiction.' They said one thing...