Natural Gas Europe - The BTE Pipeline Blast: The Implications of Sabotage

Below is my latest article for Natural Gas Europe - original here.


At the end of May, the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline carrying gas from Azerbaijan to Turkey blew up in the Turkish section. Full supplies were suspended until 11 June, whilst repair work was carried out on the line. The extent of the damage and the reluctance of Turkish officials to confirm the cause have led to widespread speculation that Kurdish militants were responsible.


If this is the case it underlines the ongoing security threats to gas supplies to Turkey, and highlights the risks which new pipelines to bring Caspian gas to Europe may face. Although Ankara has emphasised the importance of securing critical energy infrastructure, pipelines remain extremely vulnerable. Whilst the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) remains active, providing perfect security will remain impossible.


Information about the BTE blast, which took place on 29 May in or near the city of Kars, remains extremely scarce.  The route of the BTE pipeline runs through Turkey’s northeast and eastern regions, a little outside the PKK’s normal operating area of southeastern Turkey but certainly not out of their reach. A 2008 attack on the BTC oil pipeline took place in Refahiye, which is significantly west of Kars and also out of the PKK’s usual operating area.

Astana

I will be in Astana for the next week attending a conference. Any readers based out here that fancy meeting up, do let me know on ajackson320@gmail.com

A Fragile Détente on Turkey’s Kurdish Issue

Turkish politics recently has been like a rolling avalanche. Issues and controversies get picked up and never dropped; instead, they get tangled up together until every part of political life is made up of myriad, interlocking dramas.

For instance, the historic negotiations between the AKP government and the main opposition CHP over the Kurdish question cannot be disentangled from: the bad blood between the two parties, PM Erdoğan’s alleged authoritarian streak and his war of words with the pro-Kurdish BDP, the new constitution, the clampdown on the KCK, foreign policy, the aftermath of the Uludere airstrike, the role of the military in politics and the internecine battles between the military, government, and intelligence services.

With all that in mind, there are grounds for a bit of scepticism over the negotiations between the main parties to find a kind of grand bargain over the Kurdish issue. For one thing, there is no love lost between the prickly Prime Minister and the CHP’s Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who has largely shed his professorial image after a series of bruising clashes with the government and with party rebels. The body language in this photo is pretty indicative of their frosty relationship.

SCO Summit Promises Much, Delivers Little

The latest summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation has finished in Beijing, with Afghanistan and regional security the main topics under discussion. But as always with the SCO, watching the power relationships within the Eurasian security bloc is as interesting as the summit itself.

The location of the summit rotates each year but holding it in Beijing did give the Chinese an opportunity to shape the agenda and show off a bit. President Hu Jintao hwas pretty active, stressing that the SCO supported a “a new security concept that allows its member states to firmly maintain their interests, explore development paths that are suited to their individual conditions and fight against ‘interventionism.’”

The mention of interventionism is a bit of red meat for the bloc’s authoritarian leaders, who are all increasingly concerned (for their own reasons) about the growing clamour for international action in Syria.

But the other aspects of Hu’s security concept may also be rhetorical support for Central Asian states, which often feel pressured by Russia on the political and economic fronts. This may be reading too much into it but it would tie into the narrative that China and Russia are increasingly competing in Central Asia, with Russia providing cash and weaponry but also demanding political influence, whilst China simply pours money into natural resources, agriculture and commerce.

Fighting Escalates Between Armenia and Azerbaijan

The shaky ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan has been severely tested this week by some of the worst violence for years. The clashes are alarming in both scale and location, and further fighting is very possible.

On 4 June three Armenian soldiers were killed and six wounded by Azerbaijani forces in a clash allegedly sparked by an attempted infiltration of Armenian-held territory. Azerbaijan, however, has claimed that the incident was a "provocation attempt" by Armenian forces. This was followed by news on 5 June that five Azeri soldiers were killed by what the Defence Ministry in Baku called Armenian "saboteurs".

This is one of the worst clashes in some time. Usually losses are confined to one side, and tend to be as a result of brief artillery duels, bursts of machinegun fire, or snipers. Whatever the truth of the 'incursions', the information available suggests that both sides attempted to seize positions held by the other at different points.

Natural Gas Europe - Black Swans in the Black Sea? Romania’s Gas and the Southern Corridor

Below is my latest article for Natural Gas Europe. Original here.

The discovery of a major gasfield off Romania’s Black Sea coast back in February attracted a fair amount of attention. Preliminary estimates range from 42 to 84 billion cubic metres, according toOMV, which discovered the field along with ExxonMobil – a major find for Romania, and now the subject of talks with Bulgaria since part of the field lies in disputed waters.

Comparatively little attention has focused on the impact which the discovery might have on Europe’s Southern Corridor. If the field is as big as believed, and if the negotiations between Bulgaria and Romania can be settled amicably, then the race to bring Caspian gas to Europe could be changed from an unexpected direction.

In a nutshell, the development of significant gas reserves in the Black Sea – from the Khan Asparuh field and also from any new finds – would reduce the short-term imperative to supply gas from the Caspian to southeastern Europe.

Caspian Round-Up

Blogging has been very light of late. Normal service set to resume shortly. 

Some noteworthy stories which I will be looking at in more detail in the days ahead:

a)     Iran and Azerbaijan have continued to spar after the Eurovision contest. Iran’s navy is reportedly carrying out exercises along the maritime border with Azerbaijan; the Iranians have detained two Azeri poets and Baku has turned back a representative of Iran’s Supreme Leader “in accordance with Azerbaijan’s legislation”; Ali Hasanov has slammed Iran’s ‘false clergy’; and Azerbaijan has reportedly signed a new, $300m deal to buy some new Israeli drones.

b)    In related news the Iranians have also been trumpeting their new oil discovery in the Caspian, which lies in the Sardar Jangal field discovered late last year. At the time I argued that the coordinates given would put the field in Turkmen waters but this was wrong – turns out that the field is actually in what would reasonably be considered Azerbaijan’s waters instead. I will be speaking on the subject in Astana in a couple of weeks, for those attending the Caspian Offshore conference. It could be potentially big news if Iran does push forward with drilling.

Georgia, Chechnya, And The Abkhazia 'Plot'

The blame game between Russia and Georgia over shady bombings and sabotage plans has been rumbling on for years now. In Abkhazia, ‘terrorist plotters’ are fingered as Georgian agents by Moscow and Sukhumi, whilst Georgia regularly detains ‘Russian spies’ accused of occasional bombings. Russia also occasionally accuses Tbilisi of supporting Islamist militants in the North Caucasus. Unravelling fact from fiction is never easy in these cases, but the tale has taken a rather surprising new turn.

Russian intelligence claims on 4-5 May to have foiled a plot by North Caucasus militant leader Doku Umarov to attack the 2014 Winter Olympics, due to be staged in Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi. The proximity of the site to the North Caucasus has been cited before as a cause for concern but there have been few credible hints of a plan to attack the games.

Richard Morningstar in Baku - Reliable or Uninspired?

Seeking to fill a gap in the Baku embassy which has hindered US policy in the region for months, the Obama Administration has nominated Richard Morningstar, longtime Caspian hand and current Special Envoy for Eurasian Energy, as ambassador to Azerbaijan. He is likely to fare better in the nomination process than his predecessor Matt Bryza.

Bryza was sent to Baku in February 2011 after the White House gave him a recess appointment, a temporary fix to circumvent congressional opposition from Senators representing constituencies with large Armenian-American populations (Bryza is regularly accused of being too close to Azerbaijan and Turkey, and correspondingly biased against Armenia). His appointment ended in December, and he has since taken up the think-tank and conference circuit.

Charge D’Affaires Adam Sterling has been minding the shop in the absence of an ambassador. This is becoming the usual state of affairs – since Obama took office, the embassy has been run by a lower-ranking diplomat for the better part of two years. The perceived slight has provoked consternation in Azerbaijan, which was used to being assiduously courted by the US under the Bush Administration.

Hungarian Surprise Exposes Crisis of Confidence in Nabucco

Below is my latest article for Natural Gas Europe, original here:

In a surprise late-game announcement, Hungary has apparently switched its support from Nabucco to Gazprom’s rival South Stream pipeline, leaving the once-mighty pipeline consortium looking weaker than ever. If, as rumoured, Hungary’s MOL is pulling out of the project, it may – as analysts are already predicting - be a ‘terminal blow’.

The news emerged on 23 April at an event hosted by the European Policy Centre in Brussels, at which one of the speakers was Hungary’s controversial, Eurosceptic Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. When asked to comment on a 17 April meeting with Russia’s Gazprom at which two sides discussed giving South Stream “national significance status”, Orbán focused his response on the woes of Nabucco.

“Nabucco is in trouble”, he said, and that although he did not have all the details, “what I have seen is that even the Hungarian company MOL is leaving the whole project”. His comments prompted a flurry of articles saying that MOL was pulling out of the pipeline to bring gas from Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz field to Europe. A decision on either a southern or central European route will be made by June – if a central European route is chosen, the contest will be between BP’s South East Europe Pipeline and a shortened version of Nabucco.

Untangling Turkey’s Gas Pricing Knot

Leaked figures on the cost of Turkey’s gas imports, and sharp hikes in domestic electricity and gas prices, have refocused attention on the country’s energy strategy. With economic growth beginning to slow, the high price of imports may become an increasing burden. Analysis of the leaked figures suggest that, despite Turkey’s commercial stand-off with Iran, the real problem lies to the north.

On 1 April the government hiked domestic gas prices by 18.7%, with electricity prices (which are linked, since most power plants are gas-fired) rose 9.3%. The rises were intended to stop losses occurring at state energy firm BOTAŞ and followed three consecutive rises in gasoline prices last month.

Energy Minister Taner Yıldız, taking what some called a “defensive” stance on the issue, sought to deflect anger from both the opposition and the wider public by insisting that he too was displeased by the price hike but that it was unavoidable in the current climate. He said that the prices rose due to a weak lira and increasing oil prices on the back of geopolitical tensions, which had a knock-on effect on natural gas prices.

Most significantly, Yıldız asserted that the price rises would be even higher without the – still unspecified - discount obtained from Russia at the end of last year. That discount was obtained after Turkey gave permission for Gazprom’s giant South Stream pipeline to cross Turkey’s Black Sea waters.

Bankers and Bombers in Kazakhstan

The Kazakh authorities claim to have foiled a major terror plot linked to fugitive banker and persona non grata Mukhtar Ablyazov. According to the Prosecutor General, Ablyazov provided $25,000 to Alexander Pavlov, who has been on the run since 2009 and who has served as Ablyazov’s personal bodyguard since 2005.

The money was allegedly used to buy bombs which would be set off in a number of locations in downtown Almaty on March 24, including parks and office buildings. The government says that the attacks were intended to “frighten the population, create an atmosphere of chaos and panic and destabilise the social and political situation in the country.”

Ablyazov was once Energy and Industry Minister before he fell from grace and set up an opposition party. Although he managed to regain favour, things changed when BTA began to collapse in 2008. He fled to the UK soon afterwards, claiming persecution. He is currently wanted for $4.5 billion in embezzlement and fraud.

He was able to stonewall the torturous court proceedings, although he lamented that being stuck between his luxurious office and his nine-bedroom mansion was “not dissimilar to a prison”. But when a UK High Court judge sentenced him to 22 months in February for contempt of court, he promptly vanished, allegedly on a bus to France. He has filed an appeal in absentia, which BTA is seeking to remove.

With the latest twist, the government is looking to paint Ablyazov as not just a crook but a dangerous terrorist with links to “representatives of radical religious groups”. This is not new – Ablyazov was, to begin with, also accused of masterminding the deadly unrest in Zhanoezen last December in connection with Rakhat Aliev, another of the exiled oligarchs. Both accusations seem paranoid or farcical by turns.

The Murky Story of Israel’s ‘Azerbaijan Airfields’

The Iran-Azerbaijan-Israel triangle is one of the foreign affairs subjects du jour, and most of it is fairly basic rehashing of the same points, but Mark Perry at Foreign Policy has come up with something eye-opening:

"The Israelis have bought an airfield," a senior administration official told me in early February, "and the airfield is called Azerbaijan."

According to US officials Perry spoke to, Israel has a quiet and informal agreement to base its aircraft at disused Azerbaijani airfields in the case of an attack on Iran. Although they would take off from Israel, the challenges posed by fuelling such a long mission means that having a handy nearby airbase to return to – such as Azerbaijan – would make things a lot easier.

Natural Gas Europe -‘Nabucco West’ Heralds the End of the Southern Corridor Vision

Below is my latest article for Natural Gas Europe. Original available here.

Nabucco is dead – long live Nabucco. That seems to be the message of the revised concept for the huge, flawed Caspian pipeline. Although some changes were necessary given the challenges facing the project, the implications for the EU’s Southern Corridor strategy, and its broader policy goals in the region, are serious.

Nabucco has been declared all but dead for several months due to lack of confirmed suppliers, lack of financing, shifting trends in global gas markets, and competition from more nimble rival pipelines. It remains on the table as an export option for Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz Phase Two gasfield, but was widely considered to be the least likely choice.

In particular the unexpected decision by Turkey and Azerbaijan to build a Trans-Anatolian Pipeline, thus replacing much of Nabucco’s planned route with a smaller capacity, essentially turned the project into a south-eastern European pipeline (or southern Europe if the pipeline runs to Italy).

Evaluating Turkey’s ‘new’ Kurdish strategy

After clashes between the PKK and Turkish security forces left at least 13 dead, and amid growing concerns over the role of the Kurdish militants in Syria, the Turkish government’s new strategy towards the Kurds has been leaked to newspapers - but it is already coming under fire for being vague and uninspired.

The renewed fighting in Şırnak and Siirt comes on the heels of Nowruz celebrations which were marred by clashes between Kurds and police in towns across the south-east. Police also found a number of explosive caches across the country in PKK-targeted operations. It seems that the winter lull in fighting is over.

The Kurds are also emerging (or rather, re-emerging) as a crucible of tension between Ankara and Damascus. As Turkey has grown increasingly hostile to the Assad regime, there has been speculation that Damascus will rebuild its relationship with PKK cadres in Syria as a proxy against Turkey. This is despite high-level warnings from Turkey.

Natural Gas Europe - Kiev and Ashgabat Try to Rekindle Long-Distance Relationship

Below is my latest article for Natural Gas Europe - original available here:

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhammedov visited Ukraine in early March, in an apparent effort to rekindle their neglected long-distance relationship. Their shared interest in reducing Russian control over their gas exports and imports has given them common ground, but the hard realities of geography mean that rebuilding the relationship will be a very difficult task.

Berdimuhammedov’s trip to Kiev produced little of substance. Local media mainly reported that the Turkmen leader and his Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Yanukovych signed a raft of standard agreements on culture, science, humanitarian affairs, and interstate economic cooperation - no further details were provided and no concrete deals were signed.

There was also no breakthrough on the main purpose of the trip, as reported by Ukrainian officials - the resumption of direct gas supplies between Ashgabat and Kiev. Energy Minister Yuriy Boiko insisted that a dialogue was continuing but the absence of a deal, whilst expected, shows how far there is to go. The restoration of direct gas supplies was also the subject of Yanukovych’s visit to Ashgabat in September, which also produced no deals.

'Civil war' talk causes a stir in Georgia

Nobody expected the campaigning for Georgia's upcoming parliamentary election to be polite or restrained, but the last few days suggest that the mud-slinging between President Saakashvili and the opposition is beginning in earnest.

On 15 March the three leaders of the opposition Georgian Dream coalition spoke at a meeting with foreign diplomats in Tbilisi. Irakli Alasania, head of the Free Democrats and widely considered to be one of the country's more pragmatic and level-headed political operators, (certainly more so than his political ally Bidzina Ivanishvili) launched a stinging attack on Saakashvili, his former boss. 

Azerbaijan and the Iran Crisis: Stuck in the Middle

An article I wrote for CESRAN's Political Reflections magazine is now online here. The article discusses the current tension between Iran and Azerbaijan, looking at some underlying trends and factors. 


The main takeaway is, essentially - this crisis isn't easy for Baku. As with Turkey, the much-cherished dream of a multi-vector foreign policy (or zero problems with neighbours, or strategic balance, or whatever you want to call it) is fine in theory but comes under great strain when local geopolitics doesn't go your way. Maintaining that balance requires astute statecraft, compromise, and more often than not a good deal of diplomatic insincerity.

Natural Gas Europe - Analyzing Turkmenistan’s Gas Exports After the Election

Below is my latest article for Natural Gas Europe - original available here:

Last month Turkmenistan’s autocratic President Gurbanguly Berdimuhammedov won a near-unanimous ‘victory’ of 97%. His opponents were state-approved factory managers and local officials – there was never any doubt about the result.

The lack of popular pressure for reforms or new policies means that few changes are expected on the policy front. However the start of a new term (what state media are dubbing an “era of great happiness”) has provided an opportunity to reshuffle the energy sector and reconfirm the country’s commitment to different energy export routes. The question of gas supply to Europe will be one of the dominant issues facing the Turkmen leader in his second term, and he is already showing new signs of commitment to that goal.

Empty Words On Nagorno-Karabakh

I have complained before about the vagueness of the OSCE Minsk Group, its emphasis on form over substance, but the mediators of the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process – Russia, France and the US - seem to have outdone themselves this time in empty diplomatese:

“The Co-Chairs presented a plan for the sides to put into action the joint statement made by Presidents Medvedev, Aliyev, and Sargsian on January 23 in Sochi.  Building on the two Presidents' joint commitment to accelerate reaching agreement on the Basic Principles, the Co-Chairs proposed steps to assist the sides in furthering work on the framework for a comprehensive peace settlement.”