عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
World

Netanyahu Offers Rome Gas in Exchange for Embassy

Italy's Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni and Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a joint press conference following their meeting on March 10, 2023 at Palazzo Chigi in Rome. (Photo by Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP)
Italy's Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni and Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a joint press conference following their meeting on March 10, 2023 at Palazzo Chigi in Rome. (Photo by Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP)
TT
TT

Netanyahu Offers Rome Gas in Exchange for Embassy

Italy's Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni and Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a joint press conference following their meeting on March 10, 2023 at Palazzo Chigi in Rome. (Photo by Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP)
Italy's Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni and Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a joint press conference following their meeting on March 10, 2023 at Palazzo Chigi in Rome. (Photo by Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni a deal to sell Rome Israeli gas for a lower price in return for recognizing Israel’s annexation of Eastern Jerusalem, declaring Jerusalem the unified capital of Israel, and moving its embassy from Tel Aviv.

“I believe the time has come for Rome to recognize Jerusalem as the ancestral capital of the Jewish people for three thousand years, as the United States did with a gesture of great friendship,” Netanyahu told Meloni in Rome.

“We are already cooperating in gas with your national company (energy giant ENI) but we want to expand it,” he told Italian Enterprise Minister Adolfo Urso.

“I think we should look very carefully and quickly at the possibility of adding an LNG facility, perhaps in Cyprus, to increase Israel’s export capacities of gas to Italy, and from Italy to Europe.”

“I think [gas] is a strategic need of Italy and Europe, and Israel is prepared to do more with you for that end,” said Netanyahu.

Urso welcomed his comments, saying: “Italy aims to become the European gas hub and Israel must be the point of strength for gas production.”

Italy - like many other European countries - has been working to break its reliance on Russian gas since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, according to Urso.

Other options to bring Israeli gas to Europe include the EastMed project, the construction of a largely underwater pipeline nearly 1,900 kilometers long, to connect Israel’s offshore gas fields with southern Europe through Cyprus and Greece.

The gas would then be transported via the Poseidon pipeline. But the six-billion-euro project is only expected to be up and running sometime between 2025 and 2027.

Israel began producing and exporting gas after discovering several reservoirs off its coast in the early 2010s. But it lacks a gas pipeline to connect its drilling platforms in the Mediterranean to southern Europe.

“I would like to see more economic cooperation… and I believe closer interactions with your companies will be good for both of us,” Netanyahu said in an interview on Thursday with la Repubblica.

He added, “And we have natural gas: we have plenty of it and I would like to talk about how to bring it to Italy to support its economic growth.”

Netanyahu is scheduled to visit Berlin from Wednesday to Friday where he would meet with Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Most Viewed

 
 
World

Türkiye Presses PKK to Disarm ‘Immediately’

An Iraqi Kurdish woman waves a flag bearing the portrait of the founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) Abdullah Ocalan as people gather at Freedom Park to listen to an audio message by the jailed leader in Sulaimaniyah, in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region on February 27, 2025. (AFP)
An Iraqi Kurdish woman waves a flag bearing the portrait of the founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) Abdullah Ocalan as people gather at Freedom Park to listen to an audio message by the jailed leader in Sulaimaniyah, in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region on February 27, 2025. (AFP)
TT
TT

Türkiye Presses PKK to Disarm ‘Immediately’

An Iraqi Kurdish woman waves a flag bearing the portrait of the founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) Abdullah Ocalan as people gather at Freedom Park to listen to an audio message by the jailed leader in Sulaimaniyah, in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region on February 27, 2025. (AFP)
An Iraqi Kurdish woman waves a flag bearing the portrait of the founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) Abdullah Ocalan as people gather at Freedom Park to listen to an audio message by the jailed leader in Sulaimaniyah, in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region on February 27, 2025. (AFP)

Türkiye on Thursday insisted the PKK and all groups allied with it must disarm and disband "immediately", a week after a historic call by the Kurdish militant group's jailed founder.

"The PKK and all groups affiliated with it must end all terrorist activities, dissolve and immediately and unconditionally lay down their weapons," a Turkish defense ministry source said.

The remarks made clear the demand referred to all manifestations of Abdullah Ocalan's Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has led a four-decade insurgency against the Turkish state, costing tens of thousands of lives.

Although the insurgency targeted Türkiye, the PKK's leadership is based in the mountains of northern Iraq and its fighters are also part of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a key force in northeastern Syria.

Last week, Ocalan made a historic call urging the PKK to dissolve and his fighters to disarm, with the group on Saturday accepting his call and declaring a ceasefire.

The same day, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that if the promises were not kept, Turkish forces would continue their anti-PKK operations.

"If the promises given are not kept and an attempt is made to delay... or deceive... we will continue our ongoing operations... until we eliminate the last terrorist," he said.

- Resonance in Syria, Iraq -

Since 2016, Türkiye has carried out three major military operations in northern Syria targeting PKK militants, which it sees as a strategic threat along its southern border.

Ankara has made clear it wants to see all PKK fighters disarmed wherever they are -- notably those in the US-backed SDF, which it sees as part of the PKK.

The SDF -- the bulk of which is made up of the Kurdish YPG -- spearheaded the fight that ousted ISIS extremists from Syria in 2019, and is seen by much of the West as crucial to preventing an extremist resurgence.

Last week, SDF leader Mazloum Abdi welcomed Ocalan's call for the PKK to lay down its weapons but said it "does not concern our forces" in northeastern Syria.

But Türkiye disagrees.

Since the toppling of Syria's Bashar al-Assad in December, Ankara has threatened military action unless YPG militants are expelled, deeming them to be a regional security problem.

"Our fundamental approach is that all terrorist organizations should disarm and be dissolved in Iraq and Syria, whether they are called the PKK, the YPG or the SDF," Omer Celik, spokesman for Erdogan's ruling AKP, said on Monday.

Ocalan's call also affects Iraq, with the PKK leadership holed up in the mountainous north where Turkish forces have staged multiple air strikes in recent years.

Turkish forces have also established numerous bases there, souring Ankara's relationship with Baghdad.

"We don't want either the PKK or the Turkish army on our land... Iraq wants everyone to withdraw," Iraq's national security adviser Qassem al-Araji told AFP.

"Turkish forces are (in Iraq) because of the PKK's presence," he said, while pointing out that Türkiye had "said more than once that it has no territorial ambitions in Iraq".