The Energy Security Dimension Of Turkey’s Regional Policy In The Central Asia And The Caucasus

The Energy Security Dimension Of Turkey’s Regional Policy In The Central Asia And The Caucasus

Gökhan Özkan

Abstract

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union and after Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, which have many common denominators with Turkey in terms of language, religion and culture, gained independence in the Central Asia and the Caucasus; regional policy of Turkey, which was indifferent to the region during the Cold War, changed seriously. In this study, foreign policy Turkey has pursued in theCentral Asia and Caucasus after the end of the Cold War was analyzed within context of energy supply security. Increasing importance of the energy supply security concept in international politics was examined, how the rich oil and natural gas reserves of the Central Asia and Caucasus turned the region into the focus of interest of the regional and global actors was analyzed, andthe “new great game”, which many claim started in the region, was investigated. Pipeline projects such as Baku-Tiflis-Ceyhan and Nabucco that were developed to transport the hydrocarbon reserves of the region to the international markets, regional policies the global and regional actors pursue within the context of energy supply security, and reflections of these policies to the foreign policy Turkey pursues in the region were examined. It is expected that competition among the U.S., the E.U., Turkey, Russia, China, Iran and other actors over the routes the oil and natural gas reserves of the region will be transported to the international markets will continue and Turkey will become one of the key countries of the east-west as well as the north-south energy corridor. 

Keywords: Türk Dış Politikası; Orta Asya ve Kafkaslar; enerji arz güvenliği; yeni büyük oyun; jeopolitik

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Journal of Gazi Academic View is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY NC)

ISSN: 1307-9778 E-ISSN: 1309-5137

 

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