The document summarizes an article discussing geopolitical tensions between Turkey, Russia, Iran, and Kurdish groups over control of oil and natural gas pipelines and resources in the Middle East. Turkey wants to use natural gas from Iraqi Kurdistan to decrease dependence on Russia, but the PKK Kurdish group has sabotaged pipelines at Russia's urging. Iran has also offered to help Iraqi Kurds export oil to put pressure on Turkey. The pipeline politics are exacerbating tensions between regional powers vying for influence over energy resources and trade routes.

1. The Assault on
Turkey
March 2016

2. A very nice article from Al Monitor. See “How the PKK is entering energy
wars”, March 2017. The article says that Turkey wants to use the 5 trillion
cubic meters of natural gas that the Kurds of Iraq have (KRG), in order to
get rid of Russia. The Turks and the Kurds of Iraq are planning to have the
new gas pipeline ready by 2019, and Al Monitor says this is a very
convenient date for Turkey, because the major natural gas agreements
between Turkey and Russia expire on 2020.
Map 1 Kurdistan

3. The Kurdish-Turkish gas pipeline will initially carry 10 billion cubic meters
of natural gas, and will soon double the quantity to 20 billion c.m. Therefore
Turkey will replace the 16 billion cubic meters of gas she imports from
Russia with the Blue Stream Pipeline, and she will replace another 4 billion
c.m. from the Russian gas she imports through Ukraine and the Trans-
Balkan Pipeline. Turkey currently imports approximately 50 billion cubic
meters of gas, 30 from Russia, 10 from Iran, and another 10 mainly from
various countries, mainly Qatar and Algeria.
According to Al Monitor, on the 9th
of February 2016 Turkey received the
first offers for the Iraq-Turkey gas pipeline, and one day later the Kurds of
Syria (PYD and YPG) officially inaugurated their office in Russia, with
photographs of Abdulah Ocalan on the walls. Ocalan is the leader of the
Kurds of Turkey (PKK), and he is responsible for many terrorist attacks that
have been carried out in Turkey in the previous decades. He is currently
imprisoned in Turkey. The PKK is Turkey’s number one security concern.
The Kurds of Syria and Turkey do not have oil and gas and cooperate with
Russia against Turkey, while the Kurds of Iraq need Turkey to export their
oil and gas.
One week later, the PKK announced it will not accept the Iraq-Turkey gas
pipeline, and it also attacked the oil pipeline that carries oil from Iraqi
Kurdistan to Turkey, for domestic consumption, but also for export through
the Port of Ceyhan. The pipeline remained closed for 23 days and it cost the
Kurds of Iraq approximately 300 million dollars. The PKK had sabotaged
the pipeline in July 2015 too, which cost the Kurds of Iraq another 250
million dollars.

4. Al Monitor also mentions that Iran rushed to take advantage of the situation,
and offered the Kurds of Iraq to construct a pipeline in order to export their
oil through Iran, instead through Turkey. The article also mentions that the
PKK targets the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline too (TANAP), which will carry to
Turkey 36 billion of Azeri gas every year, 21 of which will end up to
Europe. The PKK has already attacked a cargo with construction materials
for TANAP, and in August it also attacked twice the South Caucasus
Pipeline (Azerbaijan-Georgia), with a cost of 200 million for Azerbaijan.
Map 2 The South Energy Corridor i.e. South Caucasus-TANAP-TAP
Pipelines
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/shah_deniz_regional_map_7
00x335.gif
Map 3 Competing Pipelines

5. https://www.eia.gov/beta/international/analysis.cfm?iso=TUR
One very important point is the coordination between Russia and Iran
against Turkey on the issue of the Kurdish-Turkish pipelines. On one hand
the PKK, which is supported by Russia, blocks the Kurdish-Turkish
pipelines by sabotaging them, and on the other the Iranians are offering the
Iraqi Kurds an alternative in order to export their oil through Iran instead
through Turkey.
Map 4 (Iran+Russia) VS Turkey

6. The Kurds of Iraq are economically dependent on their oil exports to
Turkey, and they hope that things will get better when they also export their
gas through Turkey. By blocking their way to Turkey the Russians and the
Iranians are suffocating them financially, and they also cut a part of the
Turkish oil supplies. But they go further by offering the Kurds an alternative
route for their oil exports, in order to put the Kurds of Iraq on the same axis
with the Kurds of Syria and Turkey. Turkey took the above moves very

7. seriously, and after too years the Turkish Prime Minister visited Iran, and
said that Turkey and Iran must find a solution in Syria. See Al Monitor
“Davutoglu attempts to get back to zero problems with Iran”, March 2016
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/03/turkey-iran-davutoglu-
attempt-at-fence-mending.html
The main concern for the Russians and the Iranians is not whether the Iraq-
Turkey oil pipeline will remain operational, because is has been working for
years, and they have accepted it. They mainly care about Syria, and whether
the Turks and the Arabs will use the Sunni part of Syria to construct oil and
gas pipelines, and whether the Turks and the Kurds of Iraq will go ahead
with their gas pipeline which is suppose to be ready by 2019.
Map 5
Sunni-Alawite-Shia-Kurdish Parts of Syria and Iraq

8. http://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/assets/4396135/sunni-shia-kurd_state_crop.jpg
The pipeline that the Iranians are proposing to the Kurds of Iraq is not a
good solution neither for the Kurds of Iraq nor for the Iranians. The Iranians
are very rich in oil and gas, and the Kurds of Iraq would prefer to work with
the Turks who are very poor in oil and gas rather than depend on the Iranians
for their exports. But many diplomatic moves mainly aim in putting pressure
on the other side. The Iranians are more interested in putting pressure on
Turkey than to go ahead with the Kurdish-Iranian Pipeline.
However for a diplomatic move to be effective it must have even a small
possibility of materialization. And the Kurdish-Iranian pipeline is such a
move. Because it might not be an optimal solution for the Kurds and the
Iranians, but if the Kurds of Turkey block the pipelines of the Kurds of Iraq,
with the help of Russia of course, the Kurds of Iraq will have no other
choice but to discuss the possibility with Iran. And the Iranians might not be
thrilled with a Kurdish-Iranian pipeline, but they might consider it in order
to hurt Turkey.
Now there is also the question of who is right and who is wrong. There is
not an answer to that. It depends on how one wants to see it. For example the
Turks and the Arabs might say that they are entitled to use the Sunni part of
Syria in order to construct the Turkish-Arab pipelines. Russia on the other
hand will say that Syria is a single country and a traditional Russian ally,
and she cannot be used to hurt vital Russian economic interests.

9. The Turks and the Arabs might also say that the Alawite regime in Syria i.e.
Bashar al Assad, is a minority autocratic regime, and the Russians will say
that the Arab-Turkish networks through Syria will put Russia on her knees.
Moreover the Russians will say that if the Turks and the Arabs of the Gulf
help the Sunnis of Syria to revolt, in order to go ahead with the Sunni
Pipelines, the Russians will help the Kurds of Turkey to revolt in order to
block the pipeline networks from the Caspian Sea and the Middle East to
Turkey.
What is important is that there are no courts to solve that kind of differences.
There are courts to solve the differences between two companies, but which
court will say that Russia will not be allowed to help the Kurds of Turkey, or
that the Turks and the Arabs will not be allowed to help the Sunnis of Syria?
There are no courts that can do that. Turkey and Russia can only solve their
differences through direct negotiations, and through war if negotiations fail.
Putting aside the issue of “right” and “wrong”, we can say that the new neo-
Ottomanism doctrine promoted by the Turkish Islamists, has made Turkey
more aggressive, and now everybody is afraid of Turkey. Even the Russians,
the Americans, the Chinese and the European Union are afraid of Turkey.
But the doctrine of neo-Ottaminism has made Turkey less safe.
The Turkish Kemalists had forgotten about Turkey’s influence in the Middle
East, North Africa and Central Asia, and had focused on internal security.
That way they managed to keep the Kurdistan of Turkey under Turkish
control for almost 100 years. Now it does not seem a sure thing that the
Kurdistan of Turkey will remain under Turkish control. The greater the

10. Turkish-Russian rivalry the more the Russians will arm and support the
Kurds of Turkey.
Therefore what should be done? Should the pipelines promoted by Turkey
carry oil and gas to Turkey and Europe? I guess they should, but in a way
that they do not hurt Russia too much. What is too much and too little? I
don’t know. But what I do know is that when we talk about energy, what is
important is not what is “right” and “wrong”, but how a word war can be
avoided.
At the other side, the Europeans have made some progress. The Germans,
the French, the British, the Austrians and the Dutch, have all agreed to the
German-Russian pipelines (Nord Stream 2), due to the stakes the Russians
gave them in the project. With the energy union promoted by the European
Union, the countries of the European Union will not be allowed to charge
transit fees to other EU members. Therefore the Germans will not charge
transit fees to send the Russian gas to the French and the British, in order to
keep energy prices low for everybody. If ENI joins the Nord Stream 2
project, as the Italians wants, things will get better.
Map 6 Nord Stream VS Southern Energy Corridor

11. However the French, the British and the Italians would still have to pay
higher prices than the Germans for the Russian gas, because the gas would
have to travel more in order to reach them, and there is a cost associated
with this longer travel. I guess the great European powers must somehow
share this cost, in order for all of them to have similar energy prices.
Actually the Germans are already paying the French and the Italians billions
of euros in economic aid.
Then there is the problem of Turkey. The Southern Energy Corridor is the
main geopolitical objective of Turkey, and Turkey is very angry with the
Nord Stream project. I guess the Germans will have to pay the Turks a few
billions each year, if they do not want to see the Turkish Islamists using the
Turks of Germany to create troubles in Germany. There are approximately 3
million Germans of Turkish origins in Germany, and half of them have
double nationality. See
“Erdogan Urges Turks Not to Assimilate”, February 2011

12. http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/erdogan-urges-turks-not-to-
assimilate-you-are-part-of-germany-but-also-part-of-our-great-turkey-a-
748070.html
Well, it has to be something like that. Or it will be World War 3.
For the Al Monitor Article see
“How the PKK is entering energy wars”, March 2017
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/03/turkey-israel-pkk-
shadow-player-energy-wars.html?utm_source=Al-Monitor+Newsletter+
%5BEnglish%5D&utm_campaign=71382729e9-
March_17_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_28264b27a0-
71382729e9-102393785