Context
News Russia breaks ground on new cosmodrome

Russia has launched an ambitious project to build a new spaceflight center in the country's Far East to replace the Baikonur cosmodrome it has been leasing from Kazakhstan since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

  • August 30, 2010
News OMV eyes Turkey for new power plants

OMV, central Europe’s biggest oil company, says Turkey is the most likely location for additional power plants.

  • August 30, 2010
News Israel, Palestinians stake positions ahead of talks

Israeli and Palestinian leaders were looking forward to direct talks this week in Washington with both hope and apprehension. The two sides have agreed to hold direct peace talks beginning Thursday, the first such talks since 2008.

  • August 30, 2010
News Japan's textual demands vex civilian nuclear deal with India

When Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada was in Delhi a few days back for the fourth round of strategic dialogue between Japan and India, he made it clear that negotiations on a civilian nuclear cooperation pact are going to be rather difficult.

  • August 30, 2010
News Putin opens Russian side of oil pipeline to China

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Sunday opened the Russian section of a long-awaited oil pipeline that will carry Russian crude to China in a bid to diversify its oil exports away from Europe.

  • August 29, 2010
News At least 14 militants, 1 policeman killed in Russian shootouts

Killings happened during police raids in the country’s volatile North Caucasus region

  • August 29, 2010
Publications EGF Forum View: Considering Greece as an Alternative Energy Corridor  PDF  (99 Kb)

 
August 2010
Marco Pantelakis
EGF Eurasia Energy Analyst
 
Greece Vs Turkey

Over the last decade, two energy rings have been forming in the Balkan/Caspian oil and gas pipeline/energy supply route context, first in Turkey and then in Greece. As a result, both countries have been elevated to the role of strategic energy corridor territories, linking the energy-rich Caspian region with Europe. Both Turkey and Greece exhibit vast potential in connecting Caspian supply sources with Western markets, both independently of one another as well as in unison. Taking this into account, the EU and the US in particular have endorsed policies which have privileged Turkey as the main interconnector between Europe and the Caspian in the scramble for European energy security. However, Ankara’s current geopolitical reorientation towards Russia (with whom it has developed a pragmatic, yet strong energy partnership) and the Middle East, along with the several security-political shortcomings that undermine the stability of the Turkish energy grid, might lead toward a rethinking of Western energy policy toward the alternative, emergent Greek (energy) ring. READ MORE

  • August 29, 2010
Publications EGF Turkey File  PDF  (148 Kb)


August 2010

John Van Pool 
EGF Turkey Geopolitics Analyst

Key Positions:

• Terrorism-related acts of sabotage, linked to the outlawed Kurdish-separatist group, the PKK, took place on the Kirkuk-Ceyhan oil pipeline on 10 August, disrupting production 

• The Moscow-backed South Stream gas pipeline has been losing support amongst influential stakeholders in the region (the Italian Energy company, ENI, has raised concerns that the project will not be commercially viable) 

• Turkey appears to be slowly correcting its energy policy shortcomings of the past with Russia, and Ankara now seeks a more balanced energy partnership with Moscow 

• Conciliatory gestures towards Turkey’s Kurds by the present Ankara government appear to have done little to ease tensions in the country’s south east, which is heavily populated by Kurdish minorities. READ MORE

  • August 29, 2010
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