ANKARA, Turkey, Aug. 17 (UPI) — An energy agreement between Moscow and Ankara puts Turkey above Ukraine as the top transit nation for Europe, an analyst says.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin emerged from an Aug. 6 meeting in Ankara with a document that secured Turkish approval for the construction of the South Stream natural gas pipeline in its territorial waters in the Black Sea.
South Stream would travel from the Russian port city of Novorossiysk to Varna, Bulgaria, and on to Italy and Austria through the Balkans. It would expand the gas pipeline network in Europe, adding diversity to a market dependent on transit nations.
Jeffrey Mankoff, an adjunct fellow of Russian studies at Yale University, told Turkish daily Today’s Zaman that Putin’s visit was meant to find a viable alternative to Ukrainian transit options.
A January row between Kiev and Moscow over gas debts and contracts resulted in regional gas disruptions as 80 percent of all Russian gas bound for Europe travels through Soviet-era pipelines in Ukraine.
“Given the problems between Moscow and Kiev, Russia’s position toward the Europeans carries the purpose of finding a way to not have to rely on Ukraine as a transit country, hence Russia’s agreement with Turkey,” he said.
South Stream will carry as much as 35 percent of the Russian gas for Europe. Prior to the Ankara agreement, Moscow had considered building South Stream through Ukrainian waters.
Mankoff says that now, however, the Turkish concessions “would reduce Ukraine’s ability to disrupt the transit of Russian gas, though Kiev could still cut gas through the onshore pipelines, which are much larger than South Stream is planned to be.”