The renewed risks of Russia's increased dominance in the Caspian region first surfaced when Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an agreement with Bulgaria and Greece in March for building the Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline to carry Russian oil.

Then came the news from Turkmenistan early last week that Putin and the region's main energy producers, Turkmenistan's President Gurbangul Berdymukhamedov and Kazakhstan's Nursultan Nazarbayev, shook hands to build a pipeline along the Caspian Sea coast to ship Turkmen natural gas to Western markets via Kazakhstan and Russia.

A few days before, Nazarbayev said at a May 10 meeting in the Kazakh capital of Astana with Russian President Putin, that 17 million tons of Kazakh oil might be used in the Burgas-Alexandroupolis project, the Russian Itar Tass news agency reported.

All this news obviously represented a blow to both US and European efforts to secure alternatives to Middle East oil and gas that are intended to be independent from Russian influence, such as US-backed Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, which has started carrying oil to the European markets via Turkey's Ceyhan port in the south.

It may be true that the two deals are also expected to reduce Kazakhstan's interest in routes connecting with the BTC pipeline.

Russia's deals with Turkmenistan, in particular, also have the potential to affect the Nabucco natural gas pipeline project, which will transport natural gas from Turkey to Austria, via Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary as it is intended to reduce Europe's dependence on Russian gas.

Western diplomatic sources recall that Nabucco has the capacity to meet around only 10 percent of the gas needs of Europe, but politically it is an important project as it is intended to bypass Russian gas.

But according to the same sources, Turkey's slowness in making a decision contributed to the prevention of Nabucco partners from signing a deal to secure the supply contract.

"The Nabucco project, of course, is not finished simply because Russia made these latest deals. But we [Nabucco] partners could have proved to the Azeris and Turkmens that the project is going to be a reality soon with the signing of the supply contracts. But Turkey has been taking it too slow," claimed one Western source.

The same source recalled that delays in decisions prompted supplier countries such as Turkmenistan to look for other routes to transport its gas.

It is worth remembering here that Turkey's slowness in taking quick action prevented the realization of the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline project in the past that was intended to carry Turkmen gas via Turkey to European markets.

Though Iranian gas is also important for the Nabucco project, the initial supply contracts for Nabucco should have been signed with both Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.

Turkey's attempts to use its political influence, among other things, on pricing the gas also makes the other Nabucco partners nervous. Turkey has to follow EU norms under which it cannot block any country, and Nabucco needs a liberalized gas export as well as a liberalized transit routes, according to Western energy experts.

For example, Turkey's suspension of talks with Gaz de France recently over Nabucco in reaction to a French bill on the condemnation of the so-called genocide of the Armenians during Ottoman rule, making denial of the genocide a crime, angered other pipeline project partners.

Some partners stressed that the secure supply of gas via the pipeline should be free of political influence and that Turkey should not use politics in this project. The four other countries involved in the project, Bulgaria, Romania, Austria and Hungary, have already approved partnership with Gaz de France in the project, which will transmit Caspian and Iranian gas to Western Europe, bypassing Russia.

It is also true that independent from Turkey, the project faces a series of problems, including financing, possible steel bottlenecks and pending EU permits for the pipeline. If construction of the 3,300-kilometer-long pipeline starts in 2008, it could begin operating in 2011. The 4.6 billion euro ($6.14 billion) project could transport 25.5 to 31 billion cubic meters of Caspian gas to Europe annually by 2020.

Turkey's attempts to use politics in the Nabucco gas pipeline project may be a hurdle in furthering the project, but the main reason behind the project's slowness is the US's reservations toward Iran, which has lately been involved in a serious standoff with the West over its uranium enrichment program to acquire a nuclear bomb, according to many.

But at the end of the day Ankara should avoid pursuing narrow approaches to some of its policies that also affect its economic interests.
 
By Lale Sariibrahimoglu, Today's Zaman