ABSTRACT
This chapter reassesses the importance of Russian and Caspian Sea region energy resources for Turkey’s energy security in the process of the gradual Turkish strategic rapprochement with Russia and Iran over the issue of Syria in the last few years. The analysis in the chapter is divided into four sections. The first section presents an overview of Turkey’s policy toward the Eurasian energy pipelines in the post–Cold War period. The second section shows the recent status of Turkey’s energy relations with Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. The third section questions to what extent Eurasia remains critical for Turkey’s energy security within the context of Turkey’s interdependence with the energy supplier countries in the region. The chapter argues that strategic interests driven by trade-offs and a cognitive bias driven to an extent by the worldview of the recent political leadership and mostly by national identity conception of the ruling elite together matter to understand and explain Turkey’s energy security in Eurasia. The conclusion underlines the limitations and opportunities in Turkey’s pivot to Eurasia in light of Turkey’s asymmetric interdependence with Russia in energy security.
