Dr. Nejat Tamzok
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made his second foreign visit to Azerbaijan after the elections. At the press conference they held here with the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, he stated that the work carried out in the field of energy between the two countries is ongoing, and that Europe is constantly asking him about the Azeri and Turkmen gas that will come via Türkiye. In this context, he said that the issue of the Zangezur Corridor should be settled quickly and Trans-Caspian Middle Corridor should be addressed as soon as possible.
During his visit, his remarks emphasizing that “the road is civilization” were quite striking.
Indeed, the road that will connect the geography around the Caspian Sea to Türkiye is important in many aspects, especially for the transportation of energy resources to the West via Türkiye.
Moreover, the difficulties in transporting the resources from the Eastern Mediterranean to Europe on one hand, and the tensions caused by the recent Russia-Ukraine War on the other hand, have made the transportation of Azerbaijani and Turkmenistan gas to Europe via Türkiye much more attractive.
In fact, the energy resources of the Central Asian Turkic Republics are relatively modest in size when compared to those of the Middle Eastern countries or the Russian Federation.
Of these, Kazakhstan has 1.7 percent of world oil reserves and 3.4 percent of coal reserves.
Although there are some oil and gas reserves in Uzbekistan, we can even say that Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are almost energy-poor countries.
But Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan have significant natural gas potential. 7.2 percent of the world’s gas reserves are in Turkmenistan and 1.3 percent in Azerbaijan. In terms of the size of its reserves, Turkmenistan ranks fourth in the world. Galkynysh, the world’s second largest gas field, is within the borders of this country.
Today, there is an intense competition among key players such as Russia, China, India, the European Union and the United States for access to the region’s resources. This geography has become a playground for these powers.
Russia’s strategy is to keep the energy resources here dependent on itself. Moscow does not consider it appropriate for the aforementioned resources to reach world markets outside of its control, and thinks that such a situation would alienate the countries of the region from itself. On the other hand, China wants to transport the energy resources of the region to the world markets through its own territory, while Europe, which wants to reduce its dependence on Russian gas, prefers the resources to reach itself via the Caspian Sea without passing through Russia, China or Iran.
The transportation of regional resources to Türkiye via the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus and from there to Europe is also considered important for Türkiye, which aims to be a strategic transit country in energy. In this regard, at the trilateral summit between Türkiye, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan in December 2022, an agreement was reached on the development of the infrastructure necessary for the transport of Turkmenistan gas to Europe, including the development of the 300-kilometer-long Trans-Caspian Pipeline. According to this; the pipeline with an annual capacity of 30 billion cubic meters will reach Baku via the Caspian Sea and will be connected to the Southern Gas Corridor and transferred to Europe.
Türkiye’s China connection is also desired to be developed over the same route.
While this was the case, the plan announced by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the President of the Republican People’s Party and the presidential candidate of the Nation Alliance formed by six political parties, just before the 14 May elections, as “the greatest project of my life” was surprising to many. Kılıçdaroğlu stated that if they win the election, they will open a new trade and transportation corridor, that they will establish highway and railway infrastructures along this corridor, that the road will pass through Iran, respectively, to Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, and finally to China.
As a result, the presidential candidate, who defined this plan as a project to meet with the Turkic World, completely ignored both the Caspian crossing and Azerbaijan.
To be honest, a “Turkic Road” project that bypasses Azerbaijan, which already has the capability to send gas to Turkey and Europe through pipelines, and replaces it with Iran, which cannot access world markets due to embargoes, has been recorded as one of the most interesting promises of the past elections.
The elections have come and gone. However, I am still curious about what is intended to be achieved with this initiative of Kılıçdaroğlu and who are the foreign policy geniuses proposing this project as an election strategy.
Amasra/June 2023