Monday, January 13 2020 14:35

ArmInfo. The commissioning of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline is one of Ankara's next steps in the direction of becoming Turkey as a major regional gas hub. Through the  Turkish Stream, Turkey actually becomes a transit country for Russian  gas to Europe, while before that the country received gas from Russia  exclusively for domestic use. Turkologist, Associate Expert of the  Armenian Institute of International and Security Affairs (AIISA),  Hayk Gabrielyan, expressed a similar opinion to ArmInfo.

On January 8, during the working visit of Russian President Vladimir  Putin to Turkey, the Turkish Stream gas pipeline was inaugurated. It  is planned to pump 31.5 billion cubic meters of Russian gas into  Europe annually through a 930-kilometer pipeline. The "Turkish  stream" consists of two lines along the bottom of the Black Sea, one  is supplied gas to Turkey, another - to European consumers. The depth  of the pipeline in some sections is about two kilometers.

"The main thing in all of this is that Ankara was able to  simultaneously implement two competing projects, TANAP and Turkish  Stream, thereby achieving parallel transit of both Russian and  Azerbaijani gas through its territory. At the same time, the  Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline has all the prospects for further  expansion in case of laying the "Caspian" gas pipeline along the  Caspian bottom, which in theory will allow pumping gas from Iran,  Iraq, Qatar and several other countries to the EU through TANAP, "he  emphasized.

The implementation of such a project, according to expert, opens up  prospects for Turkey to form the largest gas hub in the world on its  territory. However, at this stage of their implementation, the lack  of good relations between Ankara and the aforementioned gas exporters  and importers hinders them. The main reason, according to the  Turkologist, is the contradiction between the economic and  geopolitical aspirations of Turkey. In particular, the same gas  export from Israel and Cyprus to the EU via the shortest Turkish  route is hindered by Recep Erdogan's ambitions to become one of the  leaders of the neo-Ottoman and even Islamic world.

In any case, Ankara, according to Gabrielyan, has already done more  than half of the work in the direction of becoming Turkey as the most  important gas hub of the international level. In his opinion, for the  final achievement of the solution of their task, the Turks have to  build two gas pipelines from Iran and Israel with Cyprus. According  to the expert, the achievement of a monopoly on the Iran-EU direction  is hindered by Tehran's presence of several alternatives -  territories of countries through which Iran can also transport gas to  Europe.  "Thus, Turkey's energy and geopolitical role continues to  grow. And in the future, this could lead to Ankara's attempts to  blackmail the EU, starting from its exclusive role as a transit  country for gas to Europe. In my opinion, the EU has been too carried  away by the struggle to reduce its own gas depending on Russia. And  today, Europeans should take into account and calculate the  possibility of a similar problem this time with Turkey, "summed up  the AIISA expert.