{"id":14065,"date":"2009-08-07T07:29:35","date_gmt":"2009-08-07T04:29:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=14065"},"modified":"2014-01-05T17:22:25","modified_gmt":"2014-01-05T15:22:25","slug":"turkey-and-russia-conclude-energy-deals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2009\/08\/07\/turkey-and-russia-conclude-energy-deals\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey and Russia Conclude Energy Deals"},"content":{"rendered":"
By SEBNEM ARSU<\/div>\n
\"\"Published: August 6, 2009<\/div>\n
\n

ISTANBUL \u2014\u00a0Russia<\/span> and Turkey concluded energy agreements on Thursday that will support Turkey\u2019s drive to become a regional hub for fuel transshipments while helping Moscow maintain its monopoly on\u00a0natural gas shipments from Asia to Europe.<\/p>\n

Turkey granted the Russian natural gas giant\u00a0Gazprom use of its territorial waters in the Black Sea, under which the company wants to route its so-called South Stream pipeline to gas markets in Eastern and Southern Europe.<\/p>\n

In return, a Russian oil pipeline operator agreed to join a consortium to build a pipeline across the Anatolian Peninsula, from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, and Gazprom affirmed a commitment to expand an existing Black Sea gas pipeline for possible transshipment across Turkey to Cyprus or Israel.<\/p>\n

Energy companies in both countries agreed to a joint venture to build conventional electric power plants, and the Interfax news agency in Russia reported that Prime MinisterVladimir V. Putin offered to reopen talks on Russian assistance to Turkey in building nuclear power reactors.<\/p>\n

The agreements were signed in Ankara, the Turkish capital, in meetings between Mr. Putin and his Turkish counterpart,\u00a0Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Italy\u2019s prime minister,\u00a0Silvio Berlusconi, who has joined Mr. Putin on several energy projects, attended the ceremony. The Italian company\u00a0Eni<\/span> broke ground on the trans-Anatolian oil pipeline this year.<\/p>\n

While the offer of specific pipeline deals and nuclear cooperation represented a new tactic by Mr. Putin, the wider struggle for dominance of the Eurasian pipelines is a long-running chess match in which\u00a0he has often excelled<\/span>.<\/p>\n

As he has in the past, Mr. Putin traveled to Turkey with his basket of tempting strategic and economic benefits immediately after a similar mission by his opponents. A month ago, European governments\u00a0signed an agreement<\/span> in Turkey to support the Western-backed\u00a0Nabucco<\/span> pipeline, which would compete directly with the South Stream project.<\/p>\n

By skirting Russian territory, the\u00a0Nabucco pipeline<\/span> would undercut Moscow\u2019s monopoly on European natural gas shipments and the pricing power and political clout that come with it. That may explain why Nabucco, which cannot go forward without Turkey\u2019s support, has encountered a variety of obstacles thrown up by the Russian government, including efforts to deny it vital gas supplies in the East and a customer base in the West.<\/p>\n

Turkey and other countries in the path of Nabucco have been eager players in this geopolitical drama, entertaining offers from both sides. Turkish authorities have even tried, without much success, to leverage the pipeline negotiations to further Turkey\u2019s bid to join the\u00a0European Union, while keeping options with Russia open, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese countries are more than happy to sign agreements with both parties,\u201d Ana Jelenkovic, an analyst at Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy, said in a telephone interview from London. \u201cThere\u2019s no political benefit to shutting out or ceasing energy relations with Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the deal Mr. Putin obtained Thursday, Gazprom will be allowed to proceed with seismic and environmental tests in Turkey\u2019s exclusive economic zone, necessary preliminary steps for laying the South Stream pipe, Prime Minister Erdogan said at a news conference.<\/p>\n

After the meeting, Mr. Putin said, \u201cWe agreed on every issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

The trans-Anatolian oil pipeline also marginally improves Russia\u2019s position in the region. The pipeline is one of two so-called Bosporus bypass systems circumventing the straits between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, which are operating at capacity in tanker traffic.<\/p>\n

The preferred Western route is the\u00a0Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which allows companies to ship Caspian Basin crude oil to the West without crossing Russian territory; the pipeline instead crosses the former Soviet republic of Georgia and avoids the crowded straits by cutting across Turkey to the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n

Russia prefers northbound pipelines out of the Caspian region that terminate at tanker terminals on the Black Sea. The success of this plan depends, in turn, on creating additional capacity in the Bosporus bypass routes. Russia is backing two such pipelines.<\/p>\n

Mr. Putin\u2019s offer to move ahead with a Russian-built nuclear power plant in Turkey suggests a sweetening of the overall Russian offer on energy deals with Turkey, while both Western and Russian proposals are on the table.<\/p>\n

The nuclear aspect of the deal drew protests. About a dozen\u00a0Greenpeace protesters were surrounded by at least 200 armored police officers in central Ankara on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\n

Andrew E. Kramer contributed reporting from Moscow.<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
The New York Times <\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By SEBNEM ARSU Published: August 6, 2009 ISTANBUL \u2014\u00a0Russia and Turkey concluded energy agreements on Thursday that will support Turkey\u2019s drive to become a regional hub for fuel transshipments while helping Moscow maintain its monopoly on\u00a0natural gas shipments from Asia to Europe. Turkey granted the Russian natural gas giant\u00a0Gazprom use of its territorial waters in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":14066,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,846,1460,21,148,42,89,922],"tags":[2009,1555,9723,9775,2008,985,9778,1827,603,2010,2012,4836,1018,2013,2007],"class_list":["post-14065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-azerbaijan","category-business","category-central-asia","category-eu-members","category-israel","category-russia","category-turkey","category-world","tag-asia","tag-black-sea","tag-cyprus","tag-eastern-europe","tag-energy-deals","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-gazprom","tag-nabucco","tag-natural-gas","tag-nuclear-power-reactor","tag-putin","tag-recep-tayyip-erdogan","tag-silvio-berlusconi","tag-turkey-and-russia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}