The Turkey Briefing: Erdogan considers Russian gas offer

October 14, 2022

Welcome back to the Turkey Briefing newsletter. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s offer to set up a natural gas hub in Turkey in a bid to reroute its gas supplies to Europe has generated slightly nuanced reactions in Ankara.

Leading the Week

While Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed his full support for Putin’s offer to set up a gas supply hub in Turkey in a bid to redirect natural gas supplies to Europe, the country’s top diplomat struck a more cautious tone.

“Wherever the most suitable location is, we will, god willing, set up this distribution center there,” Erdogan told journalists on his return from Kazakhstan where he met with his Russian counterpart. “Our Energy and Natural Resources Ministry along with the Russian side will work on a study on the issue and submit it to us. Thereafter we will take the step. There will be no waiting,” he added.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, for his part, offered a more nuanced response, suggesting that European countries would also have a say in the matter.

Speaking after Erdogan’s remarks, the top diplomat said today the proposal “should be considered thoroughly” in terms of both supply and demand and infrastructural investments that such a project requires.

“We are in favor of easing the European energy crisis. The weakening of Europe is not in Turkey’s favor in any way,” he said in a televised presser flanked by his Qatari counterpart in Istanbul. “This is a matter of supply and demand,” signaling that European countries’ stance on the matter as potential buyers should also be factored in.

The diplomatic caution might be stemming from Ankara’s reluctance to draw the ire of the Western capitals further at a time when Turkey-Russian ties have come under increasing scrutiny.

Turkey’s “developing economic and trade relations with Russia” has been one of the leading sources of concern in the European Commission’s annual Turkey report this year, as Nazlan Ertan reported. Turkey’s non-alignment with sanctions against Russia “is of particular concern due to the free circulation of products,” the report said. “It is one thing not to join the sanctions against Russia and quite another to help Russia evade them,” it added.

In addition to the European club, Turkey-Russia ties remain closely tracked by Washington as US State Department’s Bureau of Energy Resources Assistant Secretary Geoffrey Pyatt stressed during his visit to Istanbul this week.

“I am convinced that no one will ever see Russia as a reliable energy supplier as long as Russia is doing what it is doing to Ukraine today,” Pyatt was quoted as saying by Turkey’s state-run Anadolu News Agency.

The American diplomat’s remarks show that Ankara-Washington relations will likely suffer another blow should Turkey move on with implementation of the proposal.

The plan can also further complicate the Turkish bid to acquire new F-16 fighter jets and modernization kits from the United States.

Sen. Bob Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, pledged Wednesday that he “will not approve any F-16 case for Turkey” unless Ankara halts its actions in what the senator described as “a campaign of aggression against the region.” He was referring to the escalating Turkey-Greece tensions over conflicting territorial claims in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Yet, as Amberin Zaman reported, Turkey’s hopes of overcoming congressional hurdles over the potential sale “rose this week when the Senate removed two amendments to a bill designed to prevent their sales from the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act.”

Speaking to Zaman, a Turkish diplomatic source aired confidence that the dropping of the amendments signaled that the sales would proceed. “The technical talks between our two governments are likely to be completed by the end of November,” the source said.

Meanwhile, along with growing Turkey-Russia ties, Turkey’s media landscape is also growingly resembling the Russian version.

Turkey’s parliament yesterday passed one of the most draconian bills in the country’s recent history that criminalizes “disinformation” and introduces jail terms for those who disseminate it, in a move that government critics along with several international media and civic watchdogs say aims to silence any dissenting voice in the country ahead of June elections.

As Nazlan Ertan reported earlier this week, the legislation — dubbed the “disinformation law” and the “online censorship law” — has been fiercely criticized by Turkish and international media groups since its submission to parliament last May.

The bill, which the country’s main opposition vowed to appeal to the country’s Constitutional Court, is poised to push Turkey deeper into lower ranks in international freedom indexes. Turkey already ranks 153rd out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ 2021 World Press Freedom Index.

Whether Turkey’s top court will agree to hear the opposition’s challenge is unknown, but apparently “karma” did. As parliamentarians were discussing the bill at the general assembly last night, Turkey’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu had a tiny live broadcast accident when a short flagpole carrying Turkey’s national flag fell off and hit him in the head due to a gust of wind just as the minister was defending the new bill’s merits.

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