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Turkey Eyes Energy Role With Russia

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  • Turkey Eyes Energy Role With Russia

    TURKEY EYES ENERGY ROLE WITH RUSSIA
    By Sibel Utku Bila

    Middle East Online
    http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/b usiness/?id=33535
    Aug 4 2009

    Putin's energy agenda in Ankara likely to include discussing oil,
    gas, nuclear power plant projects.

    Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is to visit Ankara Thursday for
    talks expected to focus on energy cooperation amid a growing Turkish
    role in projects to carry gas and oil to Europe.

    "Cooperation in the field of energy will be a primary issue on the
    agenda," an aide to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

    Situated between Europe and the vast oil and gas fields of the Caspian
    Sea and the Middle East, Turkey has emerged as a hub for pipelines
    to supply the energy-hungry West.

    Last month, Ankara hosted the signing of a long-delayed accord to
    build the Nabucco pipeline to carry Caspian gas via Turkey to Bulgaria,
    Romania, Hungary and Austria, bypassing Russia.

    The project, planned to become operational in 2014, aims to reduce
    European reliance on Russia and avoid a repetition of cut-offs that
    disrupted winter supplies and sparked accusations Moscow was using
    gas as a political weapon.

    Turkey however has been careful not to antagonise Russia -- its top
    trading partner and main gas supplier -- and Erdogan has insisted
    that Russia should also join the countries that would provide gas
    for Nabucco.

    "This is a long-term proposal," Erdogan's aide said. "Russia's
    participation in the project would not harm the aim of diversifying
    energy supply."

    In direct competition with Nabucco, Russia is pushing for its own
    project to pump gas to Europe -- South Stream -- and may seek Ankara's
    support to have the pipe pass through Turkish territorial waters in
    the Black Sea rather than Ukrainian waters, according to Turkish media.

    Russia and Turkey are not outright rivals in the energy field and
    their ties instead resemble "that game in which children try to pull
    each other to their side across a line," columnist Semih Idiz wrote
    in the Milliyet daily Monday.

    Turkey is already directly linked to Russia through the Blue Stream
    gas pipeline, which runs under the Black Sea.

    Hoping to attract Russian and Kazakh oil, Ankara is also promoting
    a pipeline from its Black Sea port of Samsun to Ceyhan on the
    Mediterranean coast, which already serves as a terminal in conduits
    pumping oil from Azerbaijan and Iraq.

    Putin's energy agenda in Ankara is likely to include also a
    long-delayed project to build Turkey's first nuclear power plant.

    Russia's state firm Atomstroyexport was the only bidder in an auction
    in January, but the Turkish government is yet to decide whether to
    award it the project amid misgivings over the financial terms the
    company offered.

    Erdogan's aide said the two prime ministers would also discuss regional
    affairs in the Caucasus.

    Russia has been mediating talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan over
    the Nagorny Karabakh dispute, the settlement of which is crucial for
    speeding up Ankara's efforts to reconcile and establish diplomatic
    ties with Yerevan.

    Another prominent issue is Georgia, whose NATO membership Turkey
    supports, despite fierce Russian opposition.

    Russia's military intervention in the former Soviet republic last year
    briefly strained relations with Turkey, which has close economic and
    political ties with Georgia, its northeastern neighbour.

    Turkey sought to tread carefully and proposed a regional platform for
    stability and cooperation in the Caucasus that will bring together
    the two foes as well as Azerbaijan, Armenia and itself.

    Despite sometimes shaky political ties, economic exchange between
    the two countries has boomed since the fall of Communism: in 2008,
    their trade volume hit 37.8 billion dollars, making Russia Turkey's
    number one trading partner.

    Russia supplies about 60 percent of Turkey's gas imports, and more
    than a million Russian holiday-makers boost Turkey's vital tourism
    sector each year.
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