PULSE of TURKEY No:90 ............................ FEBRUARY 15th, 1999
TURKEY BEING WOVEN WITH NATURAL GAS PIPELINES
Natural gas pipeline projects have been given a spur to save Turkey from the energy bottleneck in the new century. Natural gas will account for more than a third of Turkey’s total energy consumption. Iran waives $245,000 fine a day for Turkey’s delay in completing the pipeline in time. The United States suspects that Turkmen gas may arrive in Turkey via Iran and strongly objects to it. Turkey’s basic policy is to diversify its natural gas, oil and energy imports. Relations with Iran have been given a boost recently, but it has not yet gone as far as tripartite cooperation including Syria, as suggested by Tehran, because of dodgy document Damascus handed to Turkey about the PKK.
ANAP Chairman Mesut Yılmaz opened his election campaign on Thursday (11th) declaring that his campaign would carefully refrain from attacking other political parties or character assassination. He pledged to focus on national questions, instead. ANAP has already prepared detailed documents of what they did when they were in office for 18 months and what they will do when they come back to power after the elections.
One of the main themes in Mesut Yılmaz’s election campaign will be Ataturk’s address to the nation on the tenth anniversary of the Republic. The Tenth Year March rings in the ears of every Turk even today and it was given a new push last year on the occasion of the 75th year celebrations of the Republic. The march goes “..We have woven the motherland with a network of rails..” It is a proud reference to more than 8000 km of railways built in Turkey during the first 10 years of the Republic.
Natural gas will account for 37% of Turkey’s total energy consumption
In the election campaign ahead ANAP will boast of the energy program it has put into force during the Mesut Yılmaz Government’s 17-18 months in power. ANAP’s Energy Minister, Cumhur Ersümer, who manifested a perfect performance in handling this program, has become almost number two in the party after being elected the Deputy Chairman with the highest number of votes at the last ANAP Convention. ANAP will stress in their campaign that Atatürk wove the country with railways in his time and Mesut Yılmaz is weaving it with a network of natural gas pipelines to make Turkey one of the strongest countries of the new century.
Ersümer says that when they came to power Turkey’s natural gas procurement capacity was 10 billion m3 a year. This year natural gas imports from Russia are being increased by 500 million m3 to 7 billion m3 and LNG imports from Algeria by 500 million m 3 to 2.5 billion m3. They have concluded agreements and contracts to increase it to 45 billion m3 by 2005 and it will increase further in the future, first to 56 billion m3 and then over 80 billion m3. Turkey will procure 37 per cent of its energy needs from natural gas, he affirms. (Green Light to Trans-Caucasian Natural Gas Pipeline)
During the election campaign Mesut Yılmaz will announce that they increased yearly natural gas import capacities from Russia via Romania and Bulgaria from 6 billion m3 to 14 billion m3. With another pipeline under the Black Sea, the “Blue Stream”, 16 billion m3 more natural gas will be imported from Russia. In addition to this 30 billion m3 from Russia, 16 billion m3 more will be imported from Turkmenistan, according to the international agreement signed in Ankara on October 29th, Turkey’s national day, and it is planned to increase this to 30 billion m3 after 2020. With 10 billion m3 more natural gas from Iran, the total rises to 53.5 billion m3 by 2010.
Iranian natural gas meets with strong objection from Washington
The natural gas pipeline agreement with Iran was signed when Necmettin Erbakan was Prime Minister, much to Washington’s objection. It was rapidly put into force to build the necessary pipeline within a year, according to the agreement reached by Erbakan and President Rafsanjani. Even though the project was implemented at a very fast pace, it was not fast enough to be completed and put into service before Erbakan fell within a year. After him the project was suspended and a new energy program went into force within the agrement signed in Washington in December 1997 by PM Mesut Yılmaz.
But this US-Turkish energy program did not eliminate the Turkish-Iranian natural gas agreement because it had already gone ahead too far. Besides, the agreement contained a “take-or-pay” provision. In other words, Turkey accepted to pay for the agreed amount of natural gas even if it did not import it.
Still with American influence, the Yılmaz Government greatly slowed down the construction of this pipeline and it was impossible for Turkey to complete the project in time. According to the Tehran agreement, the pipeline had to go into operation by October 1998 or December 30th, 1999, the latest. Turkey’s payments for the natural gas would start as from that day even if the project had not been completed.
It is now obvious that the Turkish part of the pipeline will not be completed by the end of 1999. However, Iran has manifested understanding towards Turkey and agreed in principle to put off this date until May 27th, 2000.
Deniz Zeyrek reports in Radikal (6th) that the agreement with Iran was reached during Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Muhsin Eminzade’s visit to Ankara at the beginning of February. During his top level talks in Ankara with President Demirel, PM Ecevit and Foreign Minister Ismail Cem, he was told that the American pressure to bear upon Turkey caused the delay. He agreed that it was a strategic agreement for both sides and certain delays could be omitted in such cases. Thus Turkey was saved from paying $245,000 a day to Iran as from the end of 1999 for this delay.
In return, Ankara got down to brass tacks to complete the 1,500 km pipeline by May 23th, 2000, with a $635 million investment. The Turkish part of the pipeline has been contracted in five stretches:
Americans try to prevent gas from Turkmenistan passing through Iran
This project, called the “Doğu Anadolu Doğalgaz Ana İletişim Hattı“ (Eastern Anatolia Natural Gas Main Transport Pipeline) is the backbone of Mesut Yılmaz’s plans to weave Turkey with a network of natural gas pipelines. Especially the fifth leg of the project in the Ankara-Konya area will provide energy to the Seydişehir aliminium complex and be the lifeline of industrialization of central Anatolia. It has seven 40 inch diameter and three 16 inch diameter pipeline valves and one each gas tapping valves in Aksaray, Konya and Seydişehir.
The Washington Post headlined on December 13th, “Turks Ignore US Wishes and Opt for Iran Pipeline.” David B. Ottaway reported that Turkey had decided to procure natural gas via an Iranian pipeline, a move that is counter to US policy recommendations.
Invited to comment on this report, the State Department Deputy spokesman, James Foley, insinuated that it would be against US-Turkish commitments. The US understanding, Foley said, is that Turkey has made no decision about the Iranian pipeline “so long as Turkey’s energy requirements can be met from other sources, specifically, from a trans-Caspian alternative.”
Foley noted that “The United States and Turkey are committed to creating an east-west transportation corridor, including a trans-Caspian gas pipeline from Turkmenistan and a main export oil pipeline from Azerbaijan. Neither of these pipelines would carry Iranian resources nor transit Iranian territory.”
While it is true of the Turkmen gas reaching Turkey via Iran, this agreement with the United States is subject to the realization of a trans-Caspian gas pipeline from Turkmenistan from under the Caspian to Baku and further west to Ceyhan, along with the Azeri oil. Yet the American company Unocal announced, much to Ankara’s disenchantment, that it had pulled out of this project and BP and American companies raised objections to the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline. The American Government, however, announced to be loyal to the Yılmaz-Clinton arrangements in December 1997 and President Clinton’s special envoy for Caspian oil and natural gas, Ambassador Richard Morningstar, visited the region and Ankara in October, December and at the beginning of February in an effort to iron out the discrepancies between the American oil companies and the host countries – Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. The agreement signed in Washington on December 10th, 1998 by the Kazakh Foreign Minister Tokayev and US Energy Secretary Richardson for a feasibility survey to ship Kazakh oil and gas to the west via Ceyhan was a good sign for the realization of the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline. It undercuts the ground for oil companies that the Azeri oil is not enough to justify the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline investment.
Meanwhile, the gap between the oil companies’ claim of $4 billion cost for the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline and Turkey’s estimate of $2.3 billion is narrowing. The multinationals have come to reduce their estimate to $3.7 billion first and then to $2.8 billion and Ankara has come round to admitting that its feasibility report does not include the financing cost of the $2.3 billion needed for this project. With Ambassador Morningstar’s influence on the three host countries (for lowering transit royalties and taxes), on the one hand, and on the oil multinationals (for joining in the project), on the other, it is sure that the differences on the terms of the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline will eventually be bridged by April or so.
Turkey diversifies energy imports and cooperates with Iran
Still Washington is greatly disturbed that Turkey is independently going on with its projects to procure 30 billion m3 natural gas from Russia and 10 billion m3 from Iran, as well as oil procurements from Iran and Iraq. In return, Turkey is determined to diversify its energy resources from various sources and Mesut Yılmaz’s network of natural gas pipelines within Turkey (the above five contracts) are being prepared in such a way that they can be linked to Russia, Iran or Baku-Ceyhan in a short time if one of the suppliers stops pumping the gas. The LNG (liquid natural gas) imports from Algeria and other countries will also help to smoothly transcend such a potential crisis for Turkey in future. (New Great Game is Entering Decisive Phase).
That is why Turkey has been working hard to have friendly relations with Iran and Iraq, while exerting great efforts to prevent these efforts not fouling its cooperation with the United States. Iraqi Deputy PM Tarık Aziz’s current visit to Ankara is one of these efforts and before that similar steps were taken with Iran, especially after the establishment of President Khathemi’s moderate regime in Tehran.
A new era of friendly relations has begun between Turkey and Iran after concluding the Adana agreement with Syria about PKK terrorism last October. At the end of November, the Under-Secretary of the Interior, Yahya Gür, headed a high-powered technocrats delegation to Tehran for the Joint High Security Commission meeting. It included top police chiefs, Halil Tuğ, Emin Arslan, Sabri Uzun, and MIT and MFA representatives. During the five-day talks it was agreed to carry out joint work against terrorism and drug trafficking and to mutually exchange officers and security personnel to coordinate this work. Turkish officers will work in Iran’s Kurdish regions of Khoi, Urmia and Maku where there are PKK infiltrations and Iranian officers in Ağrı, Van and Hakkari.
Shortly after the Gür delegation signed the security agreement in Tehran, the Iranian Ambassador, Hussein Lavassani, visited on December 5th Deputy Chief, TGS, General Hilmi Özkök. This surprise visit was taken by the West as a step towards the omission of Article 10 of the 18-point National Security Council resolution of February 28th, 1997 concerning reactionary movements. Article 10 concerns measures against Iran’s activities to export the Islamic Revolution to Turkey.
The Iranian Military Attache’s visit to Ataturk’s Mausoleum on November 10th, very cordial talks between General Özkök and Ambassador Lavassani, and finally top level talks with President Khatemi and Speaker of Parliament Natık Nuri by the Turkish parliamentary delegation under Speaker Hikmet Çetin in Tehran led the way to this new era of close cooperation between Turkey and Iran not only in the security domain, but also the economy.
The Governor of Ağrı, Lütfi Yiğenoğlu, sent a report to President Demirel complaining that suspending the frontier trade with Iran had left 4500 people of this underdeveloped province out of job and that they would be potential forces for the PKK and Hizbullah if this problem is not solved. In other words, all the economic and social conditions of the country demand a reasonable cooperation between Turkey and its neighbours and these steps are now being taken by Turkey and the countries concerned. However, Iran wanted to revive the tripartite cooperation including Syria, as existed between 1992 and 1995, but Turkey does not want to go that far, because Syria has not proved its sincerity about implementing the Adana Agreement. The list of 600 PKK militants Damascus handed to Ankara under this agreement has been carefully scrutinized by Turklish security organizations and it was seen that the list was all false. None of the 600 Syrian Kurds named in the list were PKK members, but Kurds of northern Syria who had been sentenced for ordinary crimes.
Before the PKK problems are solved with Iraq and Syria a comprehensive cooperation is not easy in this region, but Turkey is edging towards it, by also trying to persuade Washington of the wisdom of it for all.uras@ada.net.tr, r February 15th, 1999