Energy policy is a component of national security strategy. The success of a nation’s internal development and sovereignty depends on prioritizing the right foreign partnerships in this area.
The Russian Energy Factor in Modern Turkey’s Security
It would be incorrect to say that Turkey is completely devoid of energy resources. For instance, the headwaters of the great Mesopotamian rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, are in Turkey, and the Atatürk Dam cascade often creates fresh water and irrigation system problems for neighboring Iraq and Syria. Turkey also has many other rivers that allow for the development of hydropower.
However, these capabilities are clearly insufficient for Turkey’s developing economy and population. Unlike the Persian Gulf states, Turkey does not have substantial oil and gas reserves, nor does it have a well-established school of peaceful nuclear technology (like Iran, for example). Consequently, Turkey is forced to import most of the gas and oil it consumes. Due to its advantageous geography at the crossroads of Asia and Europe, it is developing logistics infrastructure and energy corridors (oil and gas pipelines) for international transit, aiming to become an energy hub and secure favorable prices.
In global trade, economics and financial profitability are not always the determining factors for closing deals. Trade is often motivated by geopolitical imperatives, regardless of market prices. For example, Iran, the closest oil and gas source to Ankara, is not the main supplier of these resources to Anatolia due to well-known Western sanctions, Turkey’s NATO membership, and deep-seated (historical, ethnic, and religious) differences.
Turkey pursues a fairly balanced trade policy regarding the import of oil and gas, securing price advantages and additional benefits from energy transit with a number of countries (including the United States, Russia, Algeria, Qatar, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan). Turkish diplomacy takes the geopolitical landscape into account and leverages contradictions for its own maximum benefit.
Russia, due to its geopolitical power and vast energy resources, holds a leading position among Turkey’s external partners and suppliers of oil and gas. Energy constitutes the bulk of Russian products in the trade balance with Turkey. Specifically, over 40% of the gas consumed by Turkey comes from Russia.
Meanwhile, Western sanctions against Russia are objectively reducing the export potential of Russian gas pipeline transit to Europe via Ukraine and, conversely, are increasing exports via pipelines (“Blue Stream” and “Turkish Stream”) across the Black Sea bed to Turkey and Southern European countries.
Following the sabotage of the Russian “Nord Stream I and II” pipelines in the Baltic Sea, President V.V. Putin, in October 2022, proposed to his Turkish counterparts a mega-project to create a gas hub for establishing an electronic trading platform and supplying gas to global markets. However, over the past three years, Ankara has not yet dared to implement this advantageous energy project.
Today, it is difficult to imagine the development of the Turkish economy without Russian gas, which has secured a firm place in this country’s energy security. Similarly, the import of Russian Urals crude oil provides advantages to Turkish businesses and the economy. However, the Russian factor in Turkey’s energy security is not limited to just oil and gas.
Over more than 70 years of Turkey’s NATO membership, its allies possessing peaceful nuclear technology have neither included Ankara in the nuclear club nor built a single nuclear power plant there. The reason for the West’s such attitude toward Turkey apparently stems from distrust of Muslim Turks, fears of a revival of the imperial ambitions of the Ottoman legacy, a desire to dominate Turkey, and to maintain its dependency, preventing the strengthening of its energy security and sovereignty.
Russia, possessing advanced peaceful nuclear technology and a developed scientific school, is the only nuclear power that, respecting Turkey’s economic interests, has proposed and invested in the construction of the first nuclear power plant in Turkish history, the “Akkuyu” NPP on the Mediterranean coast. However, at the stage of commissioning, the project’s implementation slowed down due to anti-Russian sanctions and Europe’s refusal to supply certain equipment. Through this, the West is pressuring its ally for excessive independence and partnership with Russia. It was only recently, on the sidelines of the 80th UN General Assembly, that the U.S. and Turkey signed a memorandum on nuclear cooperation.
Considering the crisis phenomena in the Turkish economy (especially in the financial sector and the negative consequences of the devastating 2024 earthquake), it is Russia that, despite its own economy’s difficult situation and Western sanctions due to the Special Military Operation, provided Turkey with preferential prices for oil and gas, did not abandon financing the “Akkuyu” project, and repeatedly agreed to deferred payments at Ankara’s request. Turkey has not received such favorable conditions from its NATO allies.
Thus, the Russian energy factor is key for the Turkish economy, and its loss can hardly be compensated for in the near future.
U.S. Pressure on Turkey in the Energy Sector
The United States continues to try to impose its will on less powerful states. President D. Trump often accuses his predecessors (especially former Presidents B. Obama and J. Biden) of failed policies toward Russia, Turkey, global trade, etc.
Until September, Trump tried to restore relations with Moscow, criticized the V. Zelenskyy regime, unjustifiably raised trade tariffs on foreign partners, and attempted to circumvent U.S. participation in new anti-Russian sanctions.
Under pressure from the opposition and due to a rapid decline in his personal ratings, Donald Trump decided to switch his mask from a “dove” to a “hawk” and ramp up threats to the Russian economy, coupled with parallel deliveries of American weapons to Ukraine. The topic of Russia has once again become a subject of U.S. speculation. In dialogues with Europe, China, and India, Trump is blackmailing his partners with another business deal – offering to lower trade tariff rates if they refuse to purchase Russian oil, gas, and other resources down the periodic table.
Turkey also found itself on this list of American blackmail. Ankara had high hopes for the negotiations between R. Erdogan and D. Trump during the 80th UN General Assembly. Turkey received Trump’s promises to restrain Israel from a war against the West Bank of the Jordan River, to create a global council to manage the Gaza sector after the IDF operation is completed and Hamas is eliminated, and [to secure] control over Zangezur, conditional on the U.S. receiving 50% of the profits from the international transit of resources from Central Asia. Regarding the military deal on fighter jets and air defense systems, Washington this time made its implementation conditional on Turkey’s refusal to purchase Russian oil.
In 2023, President J. Biden linked the arms deal to Ankara’s approval of Finland’s and Sweden’s NATO membership. Following his success in the presidential elections, Erdogan fulfilled the condition, but Biden did not go beyond promises (apparently, Erdogan’s re-election was a determining factor for U.S. consent). Where is the guarantee that Trump, after the topic of Russian oil, won’t present the Turks with new conditions (for example, refusing Russian gas and the S-400)?
Meanwhile, recently, Turkish companies have reduced the volume of Russian oil purchases, citing the resumption of supplies from Iraq, fears of Western sanctions pressure, and new circumstances in the international situation.
Turkey’s abandonment of energy partnership with Russia would, first and foremost, damage Turkish interests. Russia remains hopeful that the pragmatic Turkish leadership will proceed from its own economic imperatives and independently decide from whom and what goods to buy. This was stated quite clearly by the press secretary of the Russian President, D. Peskov.
This analysis allows us to conclude that the U.S. energy pressure on Turkey is directed at Russia, but is aimed at undermining the economic sovereignty of the Turkish state.
Alexander SVARANTS – Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor, Expert on Middle Eastern Countries
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