EurasiaNet Business & Economics - Caspian Basin: Russia and Turkey Raise Obstacles for US Energy Policy

BUSINESS & ECONOMICS

CASPIAN BASIN: RUSSIA AND TURKEY RAISE OBSTACLES FOR US ENERGY POLICY
Joshua Kucera 1/28/09

To no one’s surprise, a former US special envoy for Caspian energy issues labeled Russia as the biggest headache for American policy in the region. But the former diplomatic troubleshooter, C. Boyden Gray, also said Turkey, a NATO ally, has emerged as a wild card in the Caspian energy game.

Gray was named US Special Envoy for Eurasian Energy less than a year ago, in an attempt by Washington to shore up its diplomatic influence in the Caspian Basin. The primary issue Gray dealt with was the effort to get natural gas from Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan to Europe while bypassing Russia, a project which has taken on new significance in light of last year’s Russian war in Georgia and the Russian cutoff of gas supplies to Ukraine. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Gray suggested that the challenges that he faced were more difficult than those met by his predecessors, who helped shepherd the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan [BTC] oil pipeline into existence.

"The one big difference, of course, is the presence of Russia. They [The Russians] were really weak, compared to where they are now, in the beginning of this whole process that the Clinton administration so successfully launched" to secure Caspian energy, Gray said. "We hope things will be reversed just as well for Nabucco and [Turkey-Greece Interconnector] the way it was for BTC. There is the same alignment on the customer side and on the supplier side, except that we have a lot of Russian interference, a lot of static which I think is slowing things down."

Gray spoke at an event January 26 sponsored by the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute in Washington, DC, titled Caspian Energy, the United States, the European Union, and Russia. During his tenure, Gray kept a low profile and made few public appearances or statements. But he did not appear to hold much back during his Washington appearance.

"Russia . . . caused all of the recent problems, and still is in many ways sort of the fulcrum for all of this," he asserted. "What you have to understand is that Russia, more than we do, really sees all the problems that they have with us, and with Europe, as part of a seamless set of problems. We tend to compartmentalize the NATO expansion issue, missile defense, the Iran nuclear problem and energy security is almost a separate category. We need to do better in this country and in Europe integrating all these, because Russia does."

Turkey, also, has become more a difficult partner in recent years, Gray said. While Azerbaijani gas alone wouldn’t be enough to make the Nabucco pipeline viable, it would be enough for the Turkey-Greece Interconnector, Gray said. But Ankara has dragged its feet in making a deal with Baku to transport Azerbaijan’s gas through Turkey into Europe, which raises the possibility that Azerbaijan will give up entirely on exporting its gas westwards.

"Turkey is holding up the whole thing by demanding more Azerbaijani gas and Azerbaijan says ’Hey, we don’t want to supply Turkey, we want a relationship with Europe, and if we don’t get enough through Turkey to make it worthwhile, we’ll just pack our bags and go and open up these gas fields some other day. We don’t need the money, we have more money than we know what to do with from our oil,’" Gray said.

As to why Turkey is dragging its feet, "You wonder if Turkey is fencing with Europe in part because of EU accession difficulties: it’s very hard to measure," Gray said. Indeed, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan publicly suggested that Turkish support for Nabucco could dwindle if the EU keeps dawdling on the issue of Turkish accession. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Gray said he was confident that the most inscrutable part of the puzzle - Turkmenistan - is interested in an energy relationship with the West. He described a recent three-hour meeting with Turkmenistan’s president, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, in which the president showed a detailed knowledge of gas prospecting. "I don’t think the president of Turkmenistan would spend three hours with me if he weren’t as serious about establishing a relationship with the West as he is with Russia and with China."

Gray’s tenure ended with that of the Bush administration on January 20, and he said he’s not sure if President Obama will appoint a replacement for him. But Gray did say that in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s briefings before she took her new job, she appeared to exhibit particular attention to the Caspian energy question.

Although he could not point to a signature accomplishment during his short tenure, Gray insisted that US diplomacy accomplished "everything that [could] be done." He added that the Obama administration needed to appoint a successor Caspian envoy if the United States was genuinely interested in maintaining its present influence in the Caspian. "They’ve got to fill this role, to just be there. Woody Allen said 90 percent of life is just showing up, we’ve just got to be there," he said.

Editor's Note: Joshua Kucera is a Washington, DC,-based freelance writer who specializes in security issues in Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Middle East.

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