SORU: aşağıdaki parçaya göre cevaplayınız
It is pointed out in the passage that, from the nineteenth century onwards, European involvement in the Middle East ----.
Since the dawn of civilization, the Middle East, a
region at the crossroads of Africa, Asia and Europe,
has been important to large and small powers alike,
from the empires of the East to the imperial powers of
the West. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869,
which transformed maritime travel between Europe
and Asia, added to European interest. The region's
other riches also encouraged European intervention
and rivalries. This resulted in a series of
confrontations between the Ottoman Empire and its
European adversaries, and finally in the collapse of
the former and the direct or indirect European
colonization of large parts of the region in the course
of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But
what added to the Middle East's importance in the
twentieth century was oil, which was found in
abundance in the Persian Gulf and in parts of North
Africa. Moreover, in the strategic context of the Cold
War, the region's geopolitical importance provided an
additional reason for the superpowers to increase
their role and presence.