TÜRKİYE’NİN ENERJİ KORİDORU OLARAK ROLÜ VE GÜNEY KAFKASYA’NIN İSTİKRARINA ETKİLERİ

This paper will examine Turkey’s aim to become a global energy hub and its impact on the stability of the South Caucasus. Turkey itself does not have any significant energy resources and imports gas from Russia and oil from the Middle East on a large scale. Turkey wants to decrease its dependence on gas and oil resources from Russia and the Middle East, but its dependence on foreign energy suppliers is continuously increasing. 70 percent of the world’s proven hydrocarbon reserves are located around Turkey. It shares borders with landlocked energy producers in the Caspian Sea region. This region contains some of the greatest known oil and gas reserves in the world. Turkey’s energy corridor role, particularly with respect to the potential of the Caspian basin, will also be considered. Turkey is becoming a focal point in terms of energy due to its geopolitic position and its efforts to break Russia’s monopoly on the transport of energy supplies in this region, by creating new pipeline routes to transport these supplies. Turkey has undertaken a number of major pipeline projects in order to meet its rising domestic energy demand and also provide transport to the European Union. With these projects, supported by the U.S. and EU, such as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline (BTC) and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum natural gas pipeline (BTE), Turkey contributes to peace and prosperity in the region and encourages the South Caucasian countries’ political, economic and social transformation and their integration with the European Union and NATO. In addition to these existing pipelines, the Nabucco project will contribute to enhancing Turkey’s political, economic, social and cultural relations with the South Caucasian and Central Asian states.