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.

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.

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.

Speculating on the Istanbul bombing

Istanbul was hit by an explosion this morning in which sixteen people, almost all of them police officers on a passing bus, were wounded (none of them seriously. Reports suggest that a remote-controlled bomb went off as the bus passed. The attack took place in Sütlüce, near the district office of the ruling AKP and the headquarters of one of Turkey’s largest business associations.

It’s still very early, but nobody has yet claimed responsibility. This being Turkey, there are a wide variety of potential suspects ranging from the feasible to the conspiratorial which it is worth running through.

Natural Gas Europe: Risks and Opportunities of Shell's Turkey Deal

Below is my latest article for Natural Gas Europe.

As reported on 23rd November, Royal Dutch Shell signed a major deal with Turkey’s state energy firm TPAO to begin prospecting for gas and oil onshore in southeastern Turkey, and offshore in the southwest. The deal could have major implications for Turkey’s long-term energy security but carries its own risks.

US-Turkey helicopter deal approved

The US Congress has given final approval to sell three attack helicopters to Turkey's military, in another indication that the bilateral relationship is back on track.

The sale of three AH-1W Super Cobra helicopters, drawn from the Marine Corps inventory, has been on the table for some time. There was some opposition in the House, spearheaded by Democratic congressmen, who said that they were "deeply concerned by Turkey’s increased saber rattling, its threats against Israel, its outlook toward the European Union, its occupation of Cyprus and its unrelenting blockade of Armenia”.

Israel aside, there's nothing new in that list, certainly that's not stopped previous US Administrations from selling weaponry to Turkey and closely cooperating in the military-technical sphere. Like so many critics, the objections also seem to overlook the rather salient fact that Ankara remains a fully paid-up member of NATO, a vital partner in post-American Iraq and soon to be the host of an anti-Iranian missile defence system.

The $111 million sale will give Ankara a fillip in its renewed fight against the PKK. According to Hürriyet, Turkey purchased ten Super Cobras in the 1990s but only six are now operational, so the new acquisition will help to restore the military’s airborne capabilities.

A shortage of helicopters is a serious Achilles’ heel in taking the fight to the PKK’s mountain hideouts, and Turkish Aerospace Industries is working with Italy’s AgustaWestland to produce over 50 T-129 attack choppers to the tune of $3.2 billion.

The Super Cobra sale is a direct quid pro quo for hosting the missile shield, but it’s also just the prelude to a much more significant sale: of armed Predator and Reaper drones. If the impasse between Turkey and Israel continues, the Pentagon and pro-Turkish groups on Capitol Hill are going to have a fight on their hands to secure that particular prize.