Errors have infiltrated reports of Russian-Turkish gas negotiations. Correcting them reveals that Russia is trying to take advantage of the deterioration of EU-Turkey relations, but Turkey is not taking the bait.
Continue reading →Interview on John Batchelor Show, WABC-AM 770 (New York City), 22 January 2015. … Continue reading →
Russia continues to play hardball with natural gas for the European Union, trying to get Brussels to sacrifice Ukraine in return for the promise of better relations with Moscow. This geo-economic and power-political jousting is conditioned by the fact that EU sanctions against Russia will begin to expire in three phases between March and July unless there is an EU consensus to keep them in place.
Continue reading →Interview on John Batchelor Show, WABC-AM 770 (New York City), 23 December 2014. … Continue reading →
Islamic State has made Iraqi-Kurdish energy cooperation more likely, helping to guarantee lower world oil prices for the medium-term future. Under threat of their common enemy, the central government in Baghdad and the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in the north … Continue reading →
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq has announced a plan to construct an oil pipeline to Turkey with a volume of 1 million barrels per day (bpd), move hinting at tectonic shifts in the geo-economics and associated geopolitics … Continue reading →
Incident The EU’s president Jose Manuel Barroso, visiting Baku with energy commissioner Guenther Oettinger, has signed an agreement with Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliev foreseeing the sale of “substantial volumes of gas over the long term.” But they did not publish … Continue reading →
Question: If you were an advisor to the president of the Kurdistan region, what recommendations would you make to him?
Answer: If I had the honor to advise the president of the Kurdish region, I would recommend taking a broad perspective, looking beyond the immediate political situation created by the United States. …
Press reports have indicated that what separates the United States and Turkey in their negotiations [over conditions for American access to Turkish territory and facilities for military action against Iraq in 2003] the size and nature of the economic package wanted by Ankara. This is partly true, but it is not the whole story, and not even necessarily the most important part of the story. It remains to be seen at what point the national interests of Turkey and the United States may diverge in practice, not only tactically on the ground but also strategically in the political aftermath of the war.
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