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Turkey wants a piece of gas-rich Central
Asia
By Antoine Blua
PRAGUE -
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the leader of Turkey's governing
Justice and Development Party (AKP) is in the middle of
a five day tour of Central Asia that will take him to
Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.
Erdogan
is tipped to be Turkey's next prime minister after
parliament overturned a law banning him from elected
office because of a previous old criminal conviction.
The AKP leader is expected to meet with the
presidents of the three states: Heidar Aliev of
Azerbaijan, Saparmurat Niyazov of Turkmenistan and
Nursultan Nazarbaev of Kazakhstan. Talks are due to
focus on bilateral relations, regional issues and trade,
and are designed to help tighten Ankara's relations with
the three hydrocarbon-rich countries, which Turkey
considers itself close to due to their common Turkic
heritage.
Ibrahim Bayram, a spokesman for the
AKP, spoke with RFE/RL about the purpose of the trip.
"This visit aims at deepening further economic relations
and friendship," Bayram said.
Tugrul Erkin will
head a delegation of 30 Turkish businessmen from the
Foreign Economic Relations Board, a nongovernmental
organization working to develop Turkey's external
economic relations. In his opinion, the visit shows that
the new Turkish government places importance on its
relations with Central Asia and is willing to look into
what he called the "accumulation of problems" in
bilateral ties. "[In the] last two years, the internal
problems of Turkey couldn't give some opportunities -
some possibilities - to recover the relations between
these countries. And [former prime minister Bulent]
Ecevit had no possibility to travel to these countries
because of his health, and the [political] coalition
also had many problems. Today, we have a strong
government. That's why they have to create and they have
to recover, first of all, our relations," Erkin said.
Turkey endeavored to forge closer alliances with
the Turkic states of Central Asia when they became
independent in 1991. But observers note that such hopes
soon were dampened by the region's instability, its
financial shortcomings, and Russia's remaining influence
over the area.
Furthermore, they note, there was
a noticeable drop in the number of bilateral meetings
during the past few years as Ankara focused on its
troubled and still fruitless bid to join the European
Union.
Erkin suggested that Ankara is eager to
try again. "Eurasia is a very huge area. More than 300
million people are living there, and we have many
historical and economic relations in this area. The
European Union is our target, but we have other
possibilities, and one [of them is to develop ties with]
the Caucasus, Central Asia, and [other] Eurasian
countries," Erkin said.
Mevlut Katik, a
London-based analyst on Eurasian affairs, agrees, saying
that the current tour is part of a "balancing act" on
the part of the Turkish government. "This is part of an
aggressive foreign policy activity on the part of the
new [Turkish] government since it came to power after
the November 3 election. They intensively lobbied for
European Union membership. Of course, Turkey was
disappointed by the result in the Copenhagen summit.
Therefore, they wanted to go for different alternatives
and then a more multilateral foreign-policy activity,"
Katik said.
At the European Union's Copenhagen
summit in December, Ankara was given a promise of
negotiation for membership with the EU in 2005 if it
meets certain conditions in a review set for December
2004.
Officials in Azerbaijan view positively
the fact that Erdogan began his tour in Baku. Talks
there were expected to focus on matters connected with
the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process, regional security,
and the transportation of Caspian energy resources.
According to Katik, Erdogan's visit to the three
states will focus on energy issues. "During this trip,
the main focus will be on making sure that Turkey will
be an energy bridge for the Central Asian energy
resources. I mean, transportation of [energy resources
via Turkey] to the European markets and world markets in
general," Katik said.
The French news agency AFP
quoted Novruz Mamedov, Aliev's chief foreign policy
adviser, as saying the fate of the Shah Deniz gas-field
project to export natural gas from the Caspian Sea to
Turkey will be on Erdogan's agenda in Azerbaijan.
The plan is hanging in the balance because of
worries that Turkey's stagnating economy will make the
country unable to honor its commitment to purchase the
gas. Azerbaijani officials have said that if the
go-ahead is not given by February, the project will be
mothballed.
Erkin is optimistic about the future
construction of pipelines passing through Turkey.
"Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, [and] Azerbaijan are very
important energy producers of the world. And Turkey can
be a real energy terminal of Europe. Via Turkey, gas and
crude oil can pass through Turkey to European countries.
We have the Baku-Ceyhan project. It's a huge project,
but it is [only] one possibility," Erkin said.
The construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan
pipeline, which bypasses Russia through Azerbaijan,
Georgia and Turkey, started last September. The
completion of the 1,760 kilometer pipeline, which is
being built at an estimated cost of $3 billion, is
scheduled for 2004.
There has also been flagging
trade between Turkey and Eurasia, but Erkin stressed
that there is great potential for growth. "We have trade
totaling with Eurasian countries $7 billion a year.
These figures are not enough. I mean, in the short term,
with good political relations and good economic tools,
we can reach $20 billion only with Russia [compared with
$4.5 billion in 2001]. And with the Central Asian
countries, we can reach also maybe five times today's
figure," Erkin said.
According to Turkey's state
Institute of Statistics, Turkey's annual trade volume
with Central Asia declined by 30 percent in 2001 to $830
million, including $300 million with Azerbaijan, $210
million with Kazakhstan and $180 million with
Turkmenistan.
But Alex Vatanka, editor of Jane's
Sentinel Russia and CIS, argued that there is not really
much the two parties can do for one another. The
priority for the Central Asia countries is to get their
economies going, while Turkey can't help much because of
its small amount of economic interaction with the
region. "I just wonder what the Turkish delegation, in
terms of concrete and real proposals that will make a
difference for the Central Asian state, what they can
bring with them. The Central Asian states are pretty
much commodity-based economies, heavily agricultural, or
have hydrocarbon resources. Turkey does fine in terms of
agricultural production [and] has its domestic demands
met. It doesn't need to import from any Central Asian
state. And when it comes to oil and gas, the economy
right now is operating under its full capacity. So I
don't expect any major deal signed on the economic
front," Vatanka said.
Erkin maintained, however,
that Turkish investors are extremely interested in
developing a broad range of areas, such as tourism and
textiles, and in establishing small-scale companies.
Arne Goli of RFE/RL's Turkmen Service
contributed to this report.
Copyright (c)
2002, RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington DC
20036
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