Tension relaxing on two fronts in important Turkey

April 26, 2013
Tension is easing on two still-dodgy fronts in a mostly stable country supremely important in the logistics and geopolitics of energy.

Tension is easing on two still-dodgy fronts in a mostly stable country supremely important in the logistics and geopolitics of energy.

That importance relates not to Turkey’s oil and gas production, which is negligible, but to its vital roles as an oil-transit country and power broker in the eastern Mediterranean. With an economy growing at more than 8%/year until a slowdown in 2012, Turkey also is a growth market for oil and natural gas.

One step toward relaxation was an Apr. 25 announcement by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), internationally considered a terrorist organization, that it would withdraw militant rebels from Turkey in phases beginning on May 5. Jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan had called for a ceasefire in March.

A PKK rebellion that began in 1984 in heavily Kurdish Southeast Turkey has claimed 40,000 lives.

The move toward peace is fragile. The PKK’s military leader warned from his base in northern Iraq that attacks on rebels quitting Turkey for his mountain sanctuary would incite retaliation.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu formally apologized on Mar. 22 to his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for the killing of nine Turks aboard a ship carrying aid to Palestinians in blockaded Gaza Strip in May 2010.

Relations between the countries have been icy since then. Partly as a result, Turkey has advocated slow development of deepwater gas discoveries off Israel and resisted development of an on-trend discovery in Cypriot waters.

Rapprochement would help Israel and Turkey cooperate in their relations with incendiary Syria, with which both countries have borders. And it could make Turkey a market for Israeli production, which would ease worries in Europe about the Turkish appetite for Russian and Caspian gas arriving by would-be transit pipelines yet to be built.

For a lasting end to PKK violence in Turkey and durably improved Turkish-Israeli relations, obstacles remain, including but not limited to political testiness in both countries.

But early movements in those directions are worth cheering.

(Online Apr. 26, 2013; author’s e-mail: [email protected])