Turkey as Mediator

Abdullah Gül is ready to be the mediator in Iran-U.S. negotiations

The Economic Cooperation Organization summit will open today in Tehran, practically turning itself into the natural gas OPEC. The biggest producers of natural gas -- Iran, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Qatar will discuss the possibility of realizing the Nabucco project with Turkey’s president Abdullah Gül behind Russia’s back. Turkey has declared itself ready to become the intermediary in the Iran-American negotiations, while Barack Obama plans to finish his European tour with a visit to Istanbul. This foreign policy movement shows that Turkey does not want to have a limited role, being only the carrier-country of the energy resources to Europe, but to become a dominant energy supplier like Russia.

Yesterday, the president of Turkey, Abdullah Gül, made his visit to Tehran. The official reason for this visit is participation in the Economic Cooperation Organization summit, uniting the countries of Central and Southern Asia. According to the Iran Daily newspaper, the forum’s main objective is "discussion of exporting energy resources to Europe and bypassing Russia." Besides the leaders of Turkey and Iran, the presidents of Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, as well as the emir of Qatar, heads of major exporters of natural gas, are taking part in the summit.

The topic of the gas pipeline project Nabucco, which is set to pass from the Caspian sea to Western Europe, has recently been widely discussed by all of these countries (except Qatar). The Iranian authorities have shown a sudden enthusiasm in the last months, trying to take part in this project. For example, in the beginning of March, Iran signed a contract with Turkmenistan about purchasing additional 350 billion cubic meters of gas per year. After that, Tehran declared that it can become a link between Turkmenistan and Turkey – in other words, to get the Turkmen gas to Europe the gas pipe project Nabucco can go through Iran instead of having to build the trans-Caspian pipeline. In addition to that Iran has been suggesting, for some months now, using its natural gas sources as the main base for Nabucco.

Yesterday in Brussels, the Turkish Minister of Energy, Hilmi Güler, declared that Ankara’s support of the Nabucco project is definite, and urged E.U. to use its best efforts to accelerate the realization of this project. However, at this time, it is Turkey’s stance that has become one of the main obstacles in bringing the project Nabucco to life. The deal is that Turkey does not simply wish to be the transit country for the Caspian gas into Europe. It wishes to buy all gas passing through its eastern borders and to sell it on its western borders. This is exactly what Russia is doing. Not considering itself a transit for the Central Asian gas, Gazprom buys it up completely on the Russian border. It seems that Turkey is imposing a similar scheme.

In its struggle for the rights to independently sell all the gas arriving on its territory, Turkey has already achieved some results. At the end of February the Turkish gas company, Botas, after five years of judicial lawsuits against the government of Iran, has won its claim in the International Court of Switzerland. Since 2003, Iran has been demanding to declare its addition of 10 billion cubic meters of gas as transit, seeing that Turkey sells a similar volume to Greece. However, Botas has flatly refused to make the deal by the "swap" principle (replacement) and demanded to reduce the prices. Both sides have not come to terms and subsequently in December-February; Iran began to reduce its regular delivery to Turkey, motivating it by the cold of winters. The international court has decided that Tehran should deliver the gas to Ankara for a reduced price and compensate for the termination of delivery. Thus, Turkey has taken the important step in being considered not only a transit country but a substantial supplier of energy resources to Europe.

During this summit, the president of Turkey can settle the present disagreements with Iran and explain that without Turkish support it will be impossible for Tehran to avoid the international isolation. And that is something Iran needs now more than ever -- just yesterday, Tehran’s recent statistics have been published, the inflation rate is at 26 %, and this year’s budget deficit may add up to $44 billion. In the summer of this year Iran is supposed to have its presidential elections and
the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is far from being an answered question.

However, the present arrival of the Turkish president to Tehran will have a great significance. Just a couple of days ago, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Ankara and in her interview with the Turkish TV admitted that Washington would like to see Ankara as the intermediary in negotiations with Tehran. Iranians have suggested a similar proposal and in February the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has admitted that he discussed the possibility of being an intermediary of the Iranian-American dialogue with the Bush administration in the past. And finally, on Sunday the head the Ministry of Turkey’s Foreign Affairs Ali Babacan has declared that he hasn’t received a formal invitation to lead the negotiations, but is ready to execute this role. According to Turkish newspaper “Hurriyet”, President Abdullah Gül went to Tehran with a message from U.S. President Barack Obama, which was passed on to him by Hillary Clinton. Turkish authorities have not confirmed this information; however it is known that President Gül is scheduled to meet President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the spiritual leader of the country Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Choosing Turkey as the intermediary is far from just an accident. Recently Ankara has more and more been acting in this position at various levels. For example, it is the official intermediary in the negotiations between Syria and Israel. Also, in August of last year Ankara proposed itself as the negotiator in establishing peace in the Caucasus, having put forward idea of the Caucasian platform for safety – an organization for countries such as Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia. At that time Moscow was eagerly supporting this initiative.

The participation of Turkey in the Iran-American dialogue is more than natural. Ankara is a member of NATO and Washington’ old strategic partner whose relations with Tehran have considerably improved as of late. Last year the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, visited Ankara where the heads of the Turkish and Iranian Foreign Ministries have met nine times. Moreover, after Abdullah Gül's current visit to Tehran, the parting of the two presidents will be short. On March 15th, President Ahmadinejad will make his reciprocal visit to Turkey.

In recent years, the Turkish government has been actively working to improve its image in the Islamic world, and in Iran in particular. The former center of the Ottoman Empire started improving relations in the Middle East by refusing to participate militarily in Iraq, as well as the prohibition of anti-Saddam coalition aircrafts in Turkish territory. And yet the biggest public impression in Islamic countries was made by the Turkish Prime Minster Recep Erdoğan’s démarche at the Davos forum: at the height of the Israeli operation in Gaza, he left the conference in a protest, having refused to continue the discussion with the Israeli President Shimon Peres. Although this gesture did not reflect on Turkish-Israeli relations in any way, and Ankara has explained that the Prime Minister did not wish to offend Mr. Peres, -- both Iran and the Arab countries applauded Recep Erdoğan. Furthermore, perhaps for the first time after the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, demonstrators from its eastern neighboring countries came out to rally under Turkish flags.

Turkey’s close ties with America do not damage its foreign policy ambitions in the Middle East. On the contrary, the new American administration has obviously decided to make Ankara its key contact in the region. During her visit to Turkey, Hillary Clinton declared that the U.S. President Barack Obama will finish his first European tour in Istanbul at the beginning of April. According to the Turkish media, the host of the White House will visit Turkey from April 6-7th. Thus, Turkey will become the sixth country visited by Barack Obama after his inauguration -- after Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany and the Czech Republic.

Just in January, the State Department was looking into a possibility of Barack Obama’s visit to Moscow during those dates. American foreign policy department sources of the “Kommiserant” were informed that the U.S. Secretary of State should arrive in Russia in March to discuss the presidential visit which is supposed to happen after Barrack Obama’s trip to the NATO anniversary summit April 3-4th.

Simultaneously, Washington sought Moscow’s cooperation in terms of Iran –one of the key topics in the notorious Barrack Obama’s letter to Dmitry Medvedev. However, Moscow did not rush with an answer and Washington chose to make Turkey its mediator in the Iran negotiations. It seems that due to this, the visiting schedules of the U.S. leaders have been changed.

In Hillary Clinton’s words, Barack Obama’s visit to Turkey will discuss, among other things, the energy question and the prospect of delivering hydrocarbons to Europe through Turkey. At this time, the U.S. stands as one of the most active lobbyists for the Nabucco project, however there is a sharp objection to its connection with Iran. A successful Turkish mediation in the Iranian-American dialogue can change this situation at its base. In that case, Iran will get the necessary additional gas money from Europe and Turkey will assert its new status as an alternative to Russia’s gas monopoly.