Turkey's Energy Policies in a Tight Global Energy Market

Overview

As part of its drive to serve as a significant energy transit state, Ankara has signed a number of importation agreements in the last decade with neighboring natural gas producers, inaugurated the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline project, launched the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum natural gas pipeline, and is exploring additional major energy transport and production projects. Furthermore, in April 2006, after forty years of deliberations on the issue, Turkey announced its decision to build a number of nuclear energy plants. Despite this extensive activity in the energy sphere, it seems, however, that Ankara's energy policy has been undertaken without a strategic plan and with little integration of energy issues into Turkey's overall foreign and security policies.