ArmInfo. The commissioning of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline is one of Ankara's next steps in the direction of becoming Turkey as a major regional gas hub. Through the Turkish Stream, Turkey actually becomes a transit country for Russian gas to Europe, while before that the country received gas from Russia exclusively for domestic use. Turkologist, Associate Expert of the Armenian Institute of International and Security Affairs (AIISA), Hayk Gabrielyan, expressed a similar opinion to ArmInfo.
On January 8, during the working visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Turkey, the Turkish Stream gas pipeline was inaugurated. It is planned to pump 31.5 billion cubic meters of Russian gas into Europe annually through a 930-kilometer pipeline. The "Turkish stream" consists of two lines along the bottom of the Black Sea, one is supplied gas to Turkey, another - to European consumers. The depth of the pipeline in some sections is about two kilometers.
"The main thing in all of this is that Ankara was able to simultaneously implement two competing projects, TANAP and Turkish Stream, thereby achieving parallel transit of both Russian and Azerbaijani gas through its territory. At the same time, the Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline has all the prospects for further expansion in case of laying the "Caspian" gas pipeline along the Caspian bottom, which in theory will allow pumping gas from Iran, Iraq, Qatar and several other countries to the EU through TANAP, "he emphasized.
The implementation of such a project, according to expert, opens up prospects for Turkey to form the largest gas hub in the world on its territory. However, at this stage of their implementation, the lack of good relations between Ankara and the aforementioned gas exporters and importers hinders them. The main reason, according to the Turkologist, is the contradiction between the economic and geopolitical aspirations of Turkey. In particular, the same gas export from Israel and Cyprus to the EU via the shortest Turkish route is hindered by Recep Erdogan's ambitions to become one of the leaders of the neo-Ottoman and even Islamic world.
In any case, Ankara, according to Gabrielyan, has already done more than half of the work in the direction of becoming Turkey as the most important gas hub of the international level. In his opinion, for the final achievement of the solution of their task, the Turks have to build two gas pipelines from Iran and Israel with Cyprus. According to the expert, the achievement of a monopoly on the Iran-EU direction is hindered by Tehran's presence of several alternatives - territories of countries through which Iran can also transport gas to Europe. "Thus, Turkey's energy and geopolitical role continues to grow. And in the future, this could lead to Ankara's attempts to blackmail the EU, starting from its exclusive role as a transit country for gas to Europe. In my opinion, the EU has been too carried away by the struggle to reduce its own gas depending on Russia. And today, Europeans should take into account and calculate the possibility of a similar problem this time with Turkey, "summed up the AIISA expert.