Turkey and the Southern Corridor after TAP’s Selection as the Main Export Route for Caspian Gas

German Marshall Fund of the United States, July 18, 2013

Saban Kardas *

In late June, the consortium developing Azerbaijan’s offshore Shah Deniz natural gas reserves in the Caspian Sea chose the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline project (TAP) to transport Azerbaijani gas to European markets from the Turkish border onwards. With this decision, TAP’s rival, Nabucco-West, which was for a long time considered the crown-jewel of the EU’s Southern Corridor, might come to an effective end. Having advocated Nabucco as a strategic priority since the project’s introduction in the early-1990s, and participated in it as an equal stakeholder, Turkey is adjusting its policies to the dramatically transformed reality on the ground.

* Dr. Şaban Kardaş works as an associate professor of international relations and is the department chair at the Department of International Relations at TOBB University of Economics and Technology in Ankara.

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