Post-Cold War Turkish Foreign Policy in the Caspian Region within the Context of Pipeline Geopolitics and Geoeconomics

Abstract

After five Turkish Republics gained independence in Central Asia and Caucasia after the end of the Cold War, Turkish decision makers followed an active policy in the Caspian Region. In this study, post-Cold War Turkish foreign policy in the Caspian Region was analyzed within the context of natural gas and oil pipeline projects. For this aim, global and regional actors' struggle to control the critical energy infrastructure in the Caspian Region to enhance their energy security was analyzed. Natural gas and oil pipeline projects that were developed to transport hydrocarbon reserves of the Caspian Region to Europe such as Baku-Tiflis-Ceyhan, Baku-Tiflis-Erzurum, Trans-Caspian, South Stream, Nabucco and Trans-Anatolian Gas Pipeline were evaluated. Regional policies of the global and regional actors and repercussions of these policies to the Turkish foreign policy were examined. It is estimated that struggle among the regional and global actors to enhance their influence over the hydrocarbon-rich Caspian Region and over the routes that the Caspian gas and oil are transported to international markets will continue. Turkey's efforts to become an energy hub and one of the key countries of the east-west and north-south energy corridors will intensify. During the Cold War, Turkey had benefitted from its geostrategic location and synchronized its security and foreign policies with the West. End of the Cold War and replacement of the bipolar system with the unipolar system led to the perception that Turkeys geopolitical importance declined. Discussions about the North Atlantic Treaty Organizations (NATO) future created additional uncertainties with regards to Turkeys security policy. Turkeys geographic location in the middle of the Balkans, the Middle East, Caucasia and Central Asia and political instabilities in these regions multiplied uncertainties for Turkey. These developments forced Turkey to revise its security and foreign policies. Turkey started to reevaluate its place and function in the international system. In this conjuncture, the newly independent Turkish Republics, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, which have linguistic, religious and cultural ties with Turkey, created excitement in Turkey. It was argued that Turkeys