Understanding Cooperation in Russian–Turkish Energy Relations

Introduction

Historically, Russia and Turkey have had an uneasy relationship since imperial times. Bilateral relations have been characterised by complexity, often by conflict and war, and this is reflected in the discourse between the two countries. After the end of the First World War, relations between the newly established Turkish Republic and the Soviet Union improved, but this rapprochement ended again following the Second World War. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and Turkey were in different camps, and bilateral relations were at an all-time low. Perceiving a threat from Soviet expansionism, Turkey allied itself with the United States (US) and became a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). The Soviet Union, on the other hand, formed the Warsaw Pact and perceived Turkey, as well as the West, indirectly via Turkey, as a threat. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, however, the discourse around the idea that each of the two countries represented the most immediate national security threat for the other started to diminish, paving the way for improved Russian–Turkish cooperation. The pace of this rapprochement has increased since the mid-2000s with economic and energy cooperation as well as social interaction. Accepting the fact that bilateral relations are heavily laden with issues such as the 2008 Russo-Georgian War, Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, the Russian aggression against Ukraine since February 2022, and the war in Syria, the two countries have still cooperated in various spheres and thus changed their mutual perceptions in these areas (Aktürk 2014).^[1] While Kortunov claims relations are unpredictable due to a lack of trust, Masumova sees the two countries as “natural” and indeed inescapable partners.^[2]

Energy is one of the key areas of rapprochement, with “the transformation of Turkish–Russian relations from adversity to managed competition, and the current phase of multidimensional partnership owing a great deal to the economic interdependence imparted most crucially by energy cooperation” (Kardaş 2011–12, 82). Turkey started to import gas from Russia towards the end of the Cold War, making the first significant step in the two countries’ energy relations. Although Russia’s share of Turkey’s energy supply has recently been fluctuating, Russia remains the country’s main energy supplier. Turkey imports 98 % of its gas and in 2021, bought more than 44 % from Russia. For Russia, Turkey is a major hydrocarbon market; in 2021, Turkey was its third largest gas market after Germany and Italy.^[3]

After concluding an agreement in 1984, the first gas deliveries started in 1987 (Kardaş 2011–12). The Blue Stream natural gas pipeline project, which tunnels under the Black Sea and therefore circumvents the environmentally risky Turkish Straits, has contributed to the achievement of a new level in bilateral energy relations. Built in 2001–2002, it follows the north–south oil pipeline from Samsun in northern Turkey to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. Furthermore, in 2009, Turkey allowed Russia to implement the South Stream in its exclusive economic zone in the Black Sea, which excludes the Ukrainian exclusive economic zone in the same location. After Russia abandoned the South Stream project in 2014, Gazprom announced the new TurkStream project. This pipeline, which in Russia used the existing South Stream infrastructure, has been operational since the beginning of 2020. The two countries also agreed on the construction of a nuclear power plant (NPP) in Akkuyu in southern Turkey, which was inaugurated in April 2023 (Erşen and Köstem 2020; Erdağ 2021).

Turkey is not only a major purchaser of Russian hydrocarbons and an investment destination for Russia, but also a critical transit corridor to European markets for Caspian natural gas. Alternative energy suppliers such as Azerbaijan are a potential challenge to the Russian–Turkish relationship, as are other, non-regional powers, such as the European Union (EU) and the US. According to Shlykov, “Russian–Turkish energy strategies are highly competitive and openly rival each other.”^[4] While Russia aims to retain control of all pipeline routes in the region and prevent non-Russian energy activities, Turkey is becoming an important energy corridor connecting the Caspian Sea’s energy resources to Western markets. This also serves to help Turkey realise its aim of becoming an energy hub in the region. Moreover, Turkey needs to diversify its resources to establish its energy security. In light of this, Turkey has largely positioned itself against Russia by participating in non-Russian energy projects, such as the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan (BTC) and Baku–Tbilisi–Erzurum (BTE) pipelines, the East–West Energy Corridor, and most recently, the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) and the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP). Russia, however, does not want to see Turkey enhancing its relations with the members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) (Kardaş 2011–12).^[5]

In light of these developments, energy might be expected to fuel conflict between the two countries, since the existence of alternative energy projects might cause problems for mutual relations. However, looking at the official discourse of the two countries, there is a tendency to express energy relations as a strategic partnership, or at least something akin to this. Given this dichotomy, the current article seeks to answer the question as to the extent to which energy ensures cooperation in Russian–Turkish relations. I argue that, in Russian–Turkish relations, a pattern can be observed in the fluctuations of both conflict and cooperation.

In practice, there have been elements of both conflict and cooperation in the energy relationship since 1990, but the overall balance has shifted from being more conflictual than cooperative to being more cooperative than conflictual. Therefore, I argue that, although it could rightly be claimed that the relationship is a conflictual partnership due to the existence of disputes, rather than creating additional bilateral tension, energy in fact mitigates conflict in Russian–Turkish relations. To discuss this, in this article I analyse Russian–Turkish energy relations using interdependence theory, suggesting that both countries have benefited from mutually dependent energy relations. I also indicate the reasons why they have cooperated, negotiated, and attempted to find common ground. When it comes to bilateral energy relations that exclude non-bilateral dynamics, these have been cooperative, whereas the inclusion of non-bilateral dynamics, such as non-Russian projects, has resulted in conflictual relations. However, the existence of non-Russian projects has never broken relations completely, since interdependence is high and both states are vulnerable. Thus, both states attempt to mitigate bilateral tensions and minimise elements that might fuel conflict between them. Both have effectively managed cooperative endeavours. Therefore, I claim that interdependence is one of the fundamental aspects that has promoted a more sustainable and resilient energy relationship between the two countries. I elaborate on this argument introducing examples of bilateral and rival energy projects, in particular natural gas pipelines, but also other energy-related projects. In the following, I first review the literature on Russian–Turkish energy relations, then provide an energy portrait of each country, and examine the role of energy in the two countries’ foreign policies. Finally, I present a chronological analysis of natural gas pipeline projects involving the two countries.

Literature Review

In the current literature, there is a lack of consensus when it comes to assessing Russian–Turkish energy relations as cooperative or conflictual. It appears that, to understand the dynamics of the shifts in relational patterns (Ediger and Durmaz 2017), one needs to draw on a different theoretical insight, such as a focus on the interdependence between the two countries. Not every country has energy resources. Customers depend on an energy supplier to provide the very foundation of their economic and military capabilities, while suppliers depend on customers for their national security and economic well-being. This increases the chance of dependence, defined as “a state of being determined or significantly affected by external forces” (Keohane and Nye 2012, 7). Mutual dependence transforms into interdependence when there are reciprocal costly effects of transactions. To clarify the role of power in interdependence, Keohane and Nye distinguish between two dimensions: sensitivity and vulnerability. Sensitivity “involves degrees of responsiveness within a policy framework; how quickly do changes in one country bring costly changes in another, and how great are the costly effects?” (Keohane and Nye 2012, 10). The vulnerability dimension relies on “the relative availability and costliness of the alternatives that various actors face” (Keohane and Nye 2012, 11). In other words, a country will “only be vulnerable if it has no escape route, no alternatives on offer” (Casier 2011, 541). For Russia and Turkey, this means that they are vulnerable if they cannot find any alternative suppliers or customers, and this automatically raises security and political concerns. However, due to their geopolitical location, they do have other options, thus reducing vulnerability, whereas sensitivity still exists.

When comparing the two countries, Russia has an advantage, because Turkey’s dependence on Russia is greater than vice versa. Consequently, there has been extensive debate about this inequality, which is something that worries a number of scholars (Öniş and Yılmaz 2016).^[6] They argue that this potentially shifts the balance of power in favour of Russia, which they associate with the concept of asymmetrical interdependence (Keohane and Nye 2012), often seen when a country depends on a single energy supplier. Scholars assert that in the case of Russian–Turkish energy relations, this is a source of conflict, because vital sectors like energy can damage the security of the dependent state (Demiryol 2015). The less vulnerable state (Russia) might disrupt supply or use it as a political tool against the dependent party (Turkey), leading to much higher costs for the more dependent country than for the stronger one.

Some scholars, on the other hand, argue that asymmetrical interdependence can be a source of cooperation, with parties focusing on mutual vulnerabilities and a win-win approach (Kardaş 2011–12; Erdağ 2021). Such countries, they maintain, emphasise the options implied in their interdependence. In other words, while Turkey needs Russia to meet its domestic energy demand, Russia depends on Turkey to sell its resources (Aktürk 2014). This could give Turkey a certain bargaining power.

Drawing on this debate, I claim that it would be more accurate to describe Russian–Turkish energy cooperation as “interdependence” rather than just “dependence”. Accepting the fact that this interdependence is asymmetric, the relationship has evolved beyond asymmetries. Cooperation, therefore, is characterised by a reciprocal relationship where both countries rely on each other for mutual benefits, collaborative projects, economic interests, as well as strategic and geopolitical considerations. Russia and Turkey are both deeply aware of the importance of the other in their energy relations. The concept of interdependence reduces the perception of energy as a potential source of security threats. In this context, concerns and advantages often appear at the same time, but even if states have concerns about each other, these tend not to pose a serious problem for their overall relationship, making cooperation the determining factor in bilateral energy relations. The reasons behind this lie in the fact that bilateral economic and political relations, as well as geopolitical dynamics, strongly influence bilateral energy relations. Since the early 2000s, there has been a long list of disagreements between Russia and Turkey, from Nagorno-Karabakh to Cyprus and from Syria to Ukraine. However, the close personal relations between the leaders of the two countries, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, have still enhanced economic and political relations.

Initially, bilateral relations were strongly influenced by Russia’s and Turkey’s relations with external actors, specifically its relationship with the West, which is problematic for both countries. Hill and Taşpınar (2006) define the rapprochement between Russia and Turkey as an “alliance of the excluded”. Aydın-Düzgit, Balta, and O’Donohue (2020) also claim that it is the shared resentment of the West, exemplified by disillusionment with the EU and the domestic instrumentalisation of anti-Western rhetoric, which has pushed the two countries together.

Putin and Erdoğan’s highly personalised decision-making processes are another crucial factor. Their decision-making is not constrained by bureaucratic institutions and their personal opinions and decisions are generally accepted (Aydın-Düzgit, Balta, and O’Donohue 2020). As a result, they are seen as increasingly authoritarian (White and Herzog 2016). Moreover, Balta and Çelikpala (2020) claim that the relationship between the two leaders is best described as “omnibalancing”, since each believes the other would protect his authority from internal and external threats. These authors also note a lack of institutionalisation in bilateral relations, again pointing to the strong role of the two leaders. The High Level Cooperation Council, formed in 2010 and the only institution of relevance in this context, has only met eight times so far. Thus, the two leaders are important, as is their mutual trust, while, at the same time, their strong positions make their foreign policies and bilateral relations unstable and unpredictable.^[7]

Currently, Russia and Turkey maintain relations in various areas, ranging from political to economic. These include fostering business partnerships, construction firms’ operations, as well as trade and tourism, with mutual investments enhancing these bilateral relations. While “the bilateral trade volume was only around four billion dollars in the 2000s, it reached an all-time high with thirty-eight billion dollars in 2008, making Russia Turkey’s top trading partner for that year” (Erşen and Köstem 2020, 239). Even though Russia’s share in Turkish exports declined in the subsequent years, it still maintained its position as a significant trading partner. In 2021, for instance, with a trading volume of around USD 29 billion, it was Turkey’s second largest trading partner, surpassed only by China.^[8] These developments indicate that bilateral relations have been affected by various factors that have deepened the interdependence, to the point of making them a sine qua non partner to each other.

Russia’s and Turkey’s Energy Concerns

For both Russia and Turkey, energy is of great importance to their national security, particularly regarding their national sovereignty, stability, and economic prosperity. However, while Turkey strives to become an energy hub and meet its own energy demands, Russia’s central aim is to maintain its energy security as a supplier.

Cooperation in Russian–Turkish Energy Relations

Bilateral energy relations between the Soviet Union and Turkey even existed during the Cold War when the countries were on opposite sides. Energy was perceived as vital for both their political survival and their economic development, and the convergence of interests between the two countries started with an energy agreement in 1984, which has facilitated the rapprochement since 1990 (Ediger and Bağdadi 2010; Ediger and Durmaz 2017). The agreement included a 25-year trade deal between the Russian Gazexport and the Turkish state energy company BOTAŞ concerning the natural gas flow, which started in 1987 through Ukraine, Romania, and Bulgaria, a route referred to as the “Western Line”.^[12]

However, throughout the early 1990s, Russia and Turkey displayed conflicting energy interests, principally due to competition over the transit routes from the Caspian to the European market (Demiryol, 2015). This is because, with the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan and the Baku–Tbilisi–Erzurum pipelines, Turkey chose alternative energy suppliers, and Western countries as energy partners, rather than Russia. It played an active part in these projects, aiming to circumvent Russia’s role in the transportation of energy resources from the Caspian and Central Asia and to supply the European market (Kardaş 2011–2012).

The BTC encouraged the development of projects such as the South Caucasus Project, which connected Baku in Azerbaijan to Erzurum in Turkey by way of Georgia. This BTE gas pipeline is important given the dominance of Russia over regional gas production and transport to date. The establishment of this pipeline threatened Russia’s interests and, to a limited degree, reduced its importance as a natural gas supplier. It also shifted the direction of pipeline routes from Russian territory to the south (through the Black Sea), a route that Russia would opt for again at a later stage with the South Stream and TurkStream projects. Russia took an extremely negative view of the BTC, with critics questioning its economic viability and condemning it as an attempt by the US to divide Iran and Russia (Kim and Eom 2008, 102). A number of Russian political analysts claimed that the pipeline might also carry a revolutionary “virus” that could trigger further political change in an already volatile region.^[13] Russia responded to these activities by advancing new projects that bypassed Turkey. For instance, the Russian desire to bypass the Turkish Straits for the transport of oil led to the development of the Burgas–Alexandroupolis pipeline, connecting the Bulgarian Black Sea coast with the Greek Aegean.^[14] Although Turkey became involved in and remained committed to projects backed by Western powers, and Russia responded to this shift in focus immediately, Turkey also increasingly developed a more cooperative relationship with Russia to meet its energy needs. In 1997, in an attempt to increase their bilateral energy dialogue, the two countries agreed to construct the Blue Stream project.

Risks in Russian–Turkish Energy Cooperation

There are several external risk factors in this bilateral rapprochement. Among the most important of these are Turkey’s attempts to increase its regional (energy) role, particularly in the energy-abundant post-Soviet space, and Russia’s objection to this because of its desire to maintain its own power over the same region. For instance, Turkey has sought closer political and diplomatic ties with Azerbaijan, which is a relatively easy process, because of their close ethnic, cultural, and historical ties. The Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) is an important Azerbaijani–Turkish cooperation project, which not only makes Turkey an energy customer but also a shareholder of up to 30 %. For Turkey, TANAP plays an important role in its pursuit of becoming an energy hub, because it makes it more than just a transit country and by becoming an important shareholder it could diversify its energy-based political ambitions. Moreover, as Kardaş (2014) and Kim and Blank (2016) note, Turkey benefits from the project by receiving Azeri gas at favourable prices. As a consequence, it increases its leverage with other exporter countries when negotiating the terms of future imports. While TANAP thus presents several opportunities for Turkey, it could undermine Russia’s importance as a supplier as it posits an alternative to Russian-backed pipeline projects in Southeast Europe. Baku could become a challenge for Gazprom, which risks losing significant sales revenues both to Turkey and to the Balkan countries.

Currently, TANAP is the only pipeline bringing non-Russian gas to Europe from a former Soviet country, and its importance has increased since the cancellation of the South Stream project in 2014. Russian tactics initially sought to obstruct the project using Gazprom’s shareholdings in European distribution networks. This specifically related to Greece as Russia endeavoured to block the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic (Azərbaycan Respublikası Dövlət Neft Şirkəti, SOCAR), Baku’s fully state-owned national oil and gas company, from buying a 66 % stake in a Greek gas grid operator, thereby limiting SOCAR’s activities in the TANAP and Trans Adriatic Pipeline routes through the Balkans to Italy or Austria and Germany (Kim and Blank 2016). Moreover, Russia has sought to influence other energy suppliers in Central Asia to prevent them from cooperating both with each other (particularly on non-Russian projects) and with global customers. Such an approach has been observed in the context of Azerbaijan’s attempt to cooperate with Turkmenistan on TANAP. The Russian political elite has criticised TANAP based on the environmental, technical, and financial difficulties of constructing pipelines running under the Caspian Sea. Russia’s envoy to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, maintained that it was “extremely challenging from a technical point of view” and “exorbitantly expensive”.^[15] Apart from criticising Azerbaijan, Russia has also warned Ankara“ […] that if TANAP is completed as planned in 2018, Turkey could apply to Baku for help if it needed emergency supplies of gas” (Nanay and Stegen 2012, 352, emphasis added). This is but one example of Russia reminding Turkey of its importance as a partner and supplier and highlighting Turkish vulnerability, that is its lack of energy supply in an emergency.

The case of TANAP highlights the different priorities of Russia and Turkey when it comes to ongoing pipeline projects. While Russia considers non-Russian projects a threat to its monopoly, and so opposes all projects aiming to develop resource diversity, Turkey cooperates with all countries in pursuit of its aim to become an energy hub. The aforementioned convergence of energy interests is at risk here, as energy could in fact pose a new threat to bilateral relations. However, when considering the moves taken by Russia, it appears that the country’s policy is to adopt a strong offensive position towards Azerbaijan rather than Turkey. It has attempted to limit Azerbaijan’s potential importance in energy diplomacy. Regarding Turkey, Russia has stopped issuing warnings of the sort noted above, indicating that it does not want to risk its wider relations with Turkey, which remains both an important market for Russian exports and an important transport route for its natural resources. In fact, the Russian initiative to develop TurkStream has reinforced cooperation between the two countries. Thus, while rival energy strategies persist, both Russia and Turkey have attempted to mitigate the potential for tension between them.

TurkStream

The TurkStream initiative was Russia’s reaction to the sanctions imposed by Western countries due to its annexation of Crimea in 2014. Once again, Turkey was a convenient partner, this time even reflected in the new project’s name. On 1 December 2014, following a meeting between the Russian and Turkish presidents, Putin and Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller announced that South Stream was being cancelled, stating that “taking account of the fact that we have not received permission from Bulgaria, we believe that in the current conditions, Russia cannot continue with the realisation of this project”.^[16] This was however only the most obvious reason for South Stream’s cancellation. Due to economic problems as a result of the sanctions imposed due to the annexation of Crimea and falling oil prices, Russia, whose economy heavily depended on the export of energy resources, could no longer afford South Stream. Before the cancellation was announced, however, Gazprom had already spent USD 4.7 billion on the offshore and European sections of the pipeline (Stern, Pirani, and Yafimava 2015). Turkey, therefore, played an instrumental role in changing the direction of the pipeline so that, instead of Bulgaria, the final destination would be the Turkish–Greek border. Moreover, TurkStream provided a significant tariff advantage to Russia by transmitting natural gas directly to Europe by way of non-EU member Turkey rather than EU member Bulgaria, which had to deal with the consequences of the EU’s Third Energy Package and its mandatory separation of energy supply and generation from the operation of transmission networks. Another salient feature of Russia’s energy policy was bypassing Ukraine as a transit country. Until the Orange Revolution in 2004, Ukraine had been Russia’s main transit country, through which 80 % of Russian oil and natural gas was transferred to the European market. Political disputes between Russia and Ukraine and the following energy crises in 2006 and 2009 led Russia to seek alternative transit routes. Russia thus substantially increased its competitiveness vis-à-vis other supplier countries by instrumentalising Turkey’s location and increasing energy demands (Erdağ 2021).

The announcement of TurkStream, however, revived concerns about Turkish dependence on Russian natural gas. According to Karagöl and Kızılkaya (2015), this also posed a security issue because Turkey’s dependence on Russia would increase dramatically, and Russia would gain important benefits and power. From the official Turkish perspective, however, this security concern started to evolve into mutual dependence (Çelikpala 2019). Political dimensions outweighed security and dependency concerns in driving the project. The multidimensional nature of the Russian–Turkish relationship diminished threat perceptions and focused on cooperation. Neither country allowed the complex inter relational dynamics to become a threat, instead encouraging each other to diversify energy options.

Developments after November 2015

However, bilateral relations dramatically deteriorated as a result of a devastating incident in November 2015, when a Turkish military jet shot down a Russian SU-24 bomber for allegedly having crossed the Syrian–Turkish border. While relations between Russia and Turkey had been expected to decline over the Black Sea Region or the South Caucasus, it eventually happened over Syria, a state that did not even share borders with Russia. After the incident, Russia ended visa-free travel for Turkish citizens, introduced sanctions against Turkish agricultural products, put a freeze on energy projects, and restricted Russian tourists’ visits to Turkey (Tuncalp 2016).

Seven months after the incident, in June 2016, president Erdoğan sent his condolences to Putin. This reinvigorated bilateral relations and had a positive effect on the energy sector as well. However, soon after this declaration of condolence, in July 2016, Turkey was shaken by a failed military coup. Putin immediately expressed his support and concern, turning the events into another opportunity to promote bilateral relations. Due to the cautious reactions on the part of its Western counterparts, Turkey once again felt the urge to diversify its partners, and Russia was a viable alternative. Russia, on the other hand, was struggling with Western sanctions and political isolation. After the coup attempt, Erdoğan’s first foreign visit was to Moscow on 9 August 2016. During their meeting, the two leaders declared their interest in ironing out the kinks in their bilateral political, economic and energy relations again (Winrow 2017).

In 2014, on his visit to Turkey when TurkStream was made official, Putin had stated that “we consider energy an important area in our bilateral cooperation. Our relations in this sector have reached a truly strategic level” (emphasis added).^[17] Just a year later, after the Russian jet was shot down in Syria, Putin had described the incident as “a stab in the back”.^[18] The crisis indicates the fragility of Russian–Turkish political relations,^[19] and also interrupted bilateral energy projects. For instance, Rosatom’s nuclear power plant construction in southern Turkey stalled and, more importantly, TurkStream was suspended (Çelikpala 2019). By shooting down the Russian bomber, Turkey shot down its gas hub goal, as one commentator put it.^[20] Since Russia tends to use its energy resources as a weapon, which can be seen in its relations with Ukraine and Georgia, the most important concern was whether it would do the same with Turkey (Çelikpala 2019). Turkey, after all, was heavily dependent on Russian resources. However, Russia to the contrary continued to supply the Turkish market. Tuncalp (2016) argues that the reasons for this were, first, economic interdependence, and second, the fact that Gazprom was bound by international agreements to supply agreed volumes to Turkey throughout the contractual period. Lastly, cutting supply to the Turkish market could have damaged Russia’s already tarnished reputation as a reliable supplier. Turkey, on the other hand, accelerated its efforts to find an alternative supplier and government officials paid visits to Qatar and Turkmenistan. However, these countries were unlikely to displace Russia in the short or medium term, since, at the time, Turkey lacked sufficient equipment or investment to diversify its resources by importing LNG and constructing new pipelines (Tuncalp 2016).

That said, bilateral relations, including energy relations, improved at a rapid pace. In October 2016, during Putin’s first visit after Erdoğan’s condolence letter, the two countries signed the suspended Intergovernmental Agreement for the construction of the TurkStream project: “This provided the necessary legal framework to construct two offshore and onshore strings, each with a capacity of 15.75 bcm (billion cubic metres) to carry gas to the Turkish market and to Turkey’s border” (Winrow 2017, 26). Moreover, Turkey agreed to assign a “strategic investment” status to the Akkuyu NPP project (Erşen 2017).

Assessment of Russian–Turkish Interdependence

The aforementioned energy projects and developments indicate that conflict and cooperation occur simultaneously in the Russian–Turkish energy relationship. Not only do the two countries play prominent roles in this complex set-up, but so too do key third parties. Economic interdependence plays a strategic role in bilateral energy relations whereby both sides demonstrate the will to maintain these relations. According to Keohane and Nye (2012),with interdependence, the conflict does not disappear completely but coexists with cooperation. Contrary views however focus on the degree of dependence and argue that security and political concerns might be an essential factor if countries are vulnerable. Russian–Turkish energy relations, on the other hand, indicate that the concept of interdependence is key to understanding the nature of the relationship. In particular, Turkey’s involvement in non-Russian projects and Russia’s perception of these as a threat cause tension, while multidimensional energy relations provide and maintain cooperation. In other words, economic interdependence reinforces the motivation for cooperation in the energy sector.

In recent times, TANAP and TurkStream have been seen as rival projects. The former was completed in June 2018 and started to transfer gas to the Turkish market, and the TAP has been directly transferring gas to the European market since December 2020. On the other side, in January 2020, Russia started to supply gas via TurkStream. The two projects were completed in almost the same period and the competition between them is undeniable.

Table 3 indicates that Turkey’s non-Russian energy initiatives have yielded results when it comes to meeting its energy demand after 2015 (2021 excluded). Russia’s share in Turkish gas imports has declined, whereas alternatives, in particular Azerbaijan and LNG, are on the rise. However, energy continues to play an important role in Russian–Turkish relations, because Russia is still the largest exporter to Turkey, whose gas demand remains at a respectable level. Nevertheless, Turkey’s non-Russian projects might transform the relationship from cooperation to conflict, despite multidimensional relations, such as the Akkuyu NPP, representing strong ties that neither country wants to risk. For instance, after recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, Turkey’s gas supply from Russia increased to over 26 bcm, which is equivalent to 44 % of the country’s demand, while its imports from Azerbaijan and of LNG decreased (Table 3). Moreover, Gazprom Export and BOTAŞ signed four-year contracts for the supply of up to 5,75 bcm of gas per year via TurkStream starting from January 2022.^[21] Thus, even though Turkey aims to reduce its dependence on Russian gas, it also wants to enhance its relations with Moscow.

Several concerns arose, in particular after the completion of TurkStream. The 15.75 bcm gas supply to the Turkish market via TurkStream supersedes the 14 bcm gas supply via the Western Line, which links Russian gas to Turkey through Ukraine.^[22] As already mentioned, Russia’s aim of bypassing Ukraine as a transit country is one of the drivers of this project. Therefore, concerns about Turkey’s increasing energy dependence on Russia, in particular, appear to be mitigated. Turkey used to transfer 14 bcm gas via the Western Line, but currently, it transfers 15.75 bcm via TurkStream. With the exception of the Akkuyu NPP project, this does not result in heavy dependence. On the contrary, Turkey’s non-Russian alternatives for meeting its gas demand can provide a bargaining chip for Turkey, even creating more of a level playing field between the two countries. Turkey now has options to diversify its suppliers, which might compensate for its vulnerability. Moreover, Turkey has been exploring new gas deposits in the Black Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean for many years and it recently announced the discovery of sizeable gas reserves of 320 bcm in the Tuna-1 zone of the Sakarya gas field, located around 170 kilometres offshore in the Black Sea.^[23] These are significant developments for the domestic market, since such discoveries, if tapped, could offset exports, provide more flexibility and strengthen Ankara’s hand in negotiations.

After Russia started to wage war against Ukraine in February 2022, Turkey, like most countries, accelerated its plans to diversify its gas options. Yet, it did not impose sanctions on Russian gas exports as most EU countries did. Turkey supports sanctions only when these are decided by the UN Security Council. As a NATO member, Turkey has been challenging the solidarity among the Alliance countries. Despite possessing the financial, economic and geopolitical potential to do otherwise, Turkey prefers to maintain its energy relations with Russia. After all, Russia has been a reliable energy supplier for Turkey, and the infrastructure and pipelines directly link the two countries. Considering Turkey’s aim of becoming an international, if not global, energy hub, one might argue that Turkey has instead become a hub of Russian resources. Accepting the fact that maintaining relations with Russia risks Turkey’s relations with the West, Turkey appears to be behaving pragmatically, because becoming a Russian energy hub has the potential to deepen bilateral energy ties, foster economic interdependence, and strengthen political cooperation.

Russia’s war against Ukraine is the latest critical testing ground for the two countries. One significant step Turkey took immediately after the Russian invasion was that it “declared the Russian special operation to be a war and, referring to the Montreux Convention, closed the straits to warships of any third party”.^[24] This decision turned out to be beneficial for both sides in the war. For Ukraine, it limits Russian Navy capabilities, and for Russia, it limits access to warships from non-littoral states. While Turkey may be able to maintain its relations with Russia, it in fact improved its relations with Ukraine, in particular in the defence sector. The Turkish enterprise Baykar is one of the main suppliers of armed drones to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.^[25] As Timofeev shows, Turkey has been one of the beneficiaries of this war, while also attempting to play a facilitator role for a ceasefire between the two parties.^[26] Following negotiations on the Belarusian border, Ukrainian and Russian officials met in Antalya and Istanbul. Ankara’s non-partial position between Ukraine and Russia helped facilitate an agreement between Turkey and the United Nations, on the one hand, and the two warring parties, respectively, on the other, on opening a safe maritime corridor to restart exports of Ukrainian grain from the Ukrainian ports of Odessa, Chornomorsk, and Yuzhny/Pivdennyi through the Bosporus to global markets.^[27] This Black Sea Grain Initiative ran from July 2022 to July 2023, when Russia withdrew from the deal.^[28]

The war has had important consequences also for Russia–EU energy relations. Russian gas exports via pipelines to the EU fell from 142 bcm in 2021 to 63 bcm in 2022. The transfer of Russian gas through the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines was suspended. As a consequence, TurkStream has become more important for Russia to maintain its supply to Southeast Europe, increasing its support for Turkey’s plan to become an energy hub (Henderson and Chyong 2023). Thus, even though Turkey is surrounded by alternative options for energy resources, ranging from the Caspian Sea to the Middle East, it continues to prioritise Russian resources and strives to maintain its bilateral energy relations with that country. Russia, on the other hand, has been targeting the Chinese market as a significant alternative since 2022, but it nevertheless continues to see the Turkish market as important.

Conclusion

Following the demise of the Soviet Union and Turkey’s strategy of bypassing Russia to develop energy partnerships with energy-rich former Soviet republics, energy became a source of tension, arguably coming close to conflict. For Russia, these Turkish projects were a threat because they could have limited its presence in the post-Soviet markets as well as European ones. However, with the increase in dialogue between Turkey and Russia, which resulted in new energy infrastructure projects, and in light of other regional and global developments, energy shifted from being a security threat to becoming an opportunity to develop the bilateral relationship.

One salient reason for this transformation is the increasing economic interdependence between the two countries. Russia depends on Turkey to supply its market and transport routes, while Turkey depends on Russia’s rich natural gas resources in order to meet its energy demands. Although Turkey has attempted to diversify its resources by looking to other countries, it has also attempted to diversify its energy imports from Russia.

The complex and multifaceted Russian–Turkish energy relations are thus characterised by a mutual interdependence that involves the exchange of energy resources, cooperation in energy projects, and the establishment of energy infrastructure between the two countries. These relations are driven by a combination of economic, political, and strategic interests, with both sides seeking to maximise their respective benefits and leverage. While disagreement and tensions do occur, the overall relationship aims to enhance energy security, diversify export routes, and foster economic and political ties.

As a result, in official discourses, energy is used to underline the close relations between the two countries. Terms such as “locomotive”, “strategic level”, and “boost” are often uttered by the elites of each country to express the current nature of relations, as well as to emphasise the role of energy within them.^[29] Energy has thus been a significant driver behind the discursive shift from historically negative mutual perceptions, which resulted in more security-oriented policy direction, to the current multidimensional policy approaches on both sides.