Syria, Energy, and the Eastern Mediterranean

In recent days, Minister of Energy Alparslan Bayraktar stated, “As Turkey, we are working to increase our connections with neighboring markets and triple them. In terms of our geographical location, we are currently providing energy to our neighbor Iraq, and we will increase our energy supply to Syria to ensure stability in the region and the country. These regional connections and cooperation have become much more important.” The energy supply mentioned here referred to electricity. Indeed, Turkish officials have previously addressed the electricity problem in Syria through various statements. 

Electricity aside, this statement by the minister brought to mind the issue of energy resources and (corridors) that was frequently discussed before and during the Syrian Civil War. As Syria is on the dawn of a new regime, but everything is still mostly “up in the air,” I wanted to take a look at what is currently being discussed regarding this topic. Because it is clear that these will always be on the table in the coming period and will occupy an important place in Turkey’s foreign policy. 

For the last few weeks, pipeline policies that keep circling back to our “Eastern Mediterranean” issue have been under discussion. This is closely related to the idea of a pipeline project expected to transport Qatar’s natural gas to Turkey via Syria. This project actually emerged towards the end of the 2000s and was later shelved as the civil war in Syria expanded and the balances shifted. The regime change in Syria also meant that the project was taken off the shelf again. At least, the statements are in that direction. A possible line seems important both for Turkey’s energy security and for Europe to be able to access gas from a source other than Russia. Of course, the most important question mark, or determinant, here is how stable Syria’s future will be... 

Although these questions are not only directed at Turkey... As a result, the energy issue is not just an inter-state matter. Since it is a transnational issue, I can say that we will sense the answers to these question marks from the stance of “capital.” 

The topic that is more interesting to me is that Syria affects Turkey’s energy projection in more than one way... The most direct example of this will be the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean. The relationship Turkey establishes with Syria will remind us of the problems in the Eastern Mediterranean, which seem to have faded for now, and will consolidate—or restructure—regional axes. It is possible to say that a natural gas pipeline project extending from Qatar to Turkey disturbs Israel. Because one of the rivals of this line is the EastMed pipeline project. 

Israeli think tanks have been writing for a few weeks that action should be taken in cooperation with Greece and (Southern) Cyprus. In this direction, the parties came together again last week for a modified and likely less costly version of EastMed. It is said that this revised plan includes a short pipeline between Israel and Cyprus, and envisions the transport of gas from Cyprus onwards via liquefied natural gas shipping. Although there is no pipeline extending to Greece, Athens attaches importance to this cooperation in terms of the balance and axes in the Eastern Mediterranean. 

In short, I think we will talk about the Cyprus issue more in the near future than we did last year. The subject is not just the reignition of pipeline debates, either. What has happened in Syria in the last month has also brought the possibility of an EEZ agreement between Turkey and Syria to the agenda. This situation will also bring problematic issues such as maritime jurisdiction areas in the Eastern Mediterranean back to the agenda. This potential agreement seems to have created excitement in the Turkish press in the context of the Blue Homeland paradigm. It will also be necessary to see what kind of discussion the situation of Syria being currently governed by an interim government will create. 

Actually, everything that is the subject of this article and other issues that concern Turkey are all tied to this issue of the “future.” So much so that the subject of Syria and energy cannot be thought of only in the context of natural gas pipeline policy and its effect on the Eastern Mediterranean. The issue of oil in Syria is also important.

Because the region where the country’s oil resources are located is under the control of the SDF. The future of the reserves in the region controlled by this organization, against which Ankara is trying to conduct an ambiguous coercive diplomacy for its dissolution, is also a subject of debate. For example, the Turkish Minister of Energy had stated that “Syrian oil could be opened to the world and to refineries in Turkey via the Iraq-Turkey oil pipeline.” In short, the shape that the north of Syria—and indeed the whole of it—will take is also important in terms of the energy projections of countries.