An Eastern Mediterranean
Oil War?
By Colonel David Eshel

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s overnight visit to Turkey has focused
attention to the strategic dialogue between the two democratic nations
in the Eastern Mediterranean. Turkey is a powerful, pro-Western, not
Arab but definitely Muslim country and Israelis had hoped for years
that its expanding relations would break the impression that the
Muslim world opposed the Jewish state.

The Turks were initially cautious, but came round about a decade ago
when they reassessed their policies. They felt that dangerous
neighbors and hotspots of instability were across their borders, and
believed that Israel’s influence in the United States could help
especially in countering Greek and Armenian lobbies in Washington.
The Turkish army’s Deputy Chief of Staff Gen. Ergin Saygun was in
Israel late last year discussing plans and more such visits are
expected following Olmert’s visit. But there seems to be much more at
stake than mere diplomatic photo opportunity exchanges between Turkey
and Israel.

Virtually unnoticed, the inauguration of the Ceyhan-Tiblisi-Baku (BTC)
oil pipeline, which links the Caspian Sea to the Eastern Mediterranean
took place on the 13th July 2006, at the very outset of the Second
Lebanon War. The official reception took place in Istanbul, hosted by
Turkey’s President Ahmet Necdet Sezer in the ýraðan Palace. Many
dignitaries among them, British Petroleum’s CEO Lord Brown and BP
leading the BTC pipeline consortium of western oil companies and
senior government officials, top oil ministers and leaders of western
oil companies, from Britain, the US, Israel and Turkey were all
present at the ceremony.

The 1,770 km Baku Tbilisi Ceyhan pipeline, simply known by the acronym
BTC, is one of the world’s longest and cost US$4 billion to build. It
snakes its way from the Sangachal oil and gas terminal south of the
Azeri capital of Baku on the Caspian Sea through neighboring Georgia
and some of the most mountainous regions of the Caucasus to finally
reach the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean.

The BTC pipeline totally bypasses the territory of the Russian
Federation.

as it transits through the former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and
Georgia, both of which have become US `protectorates’, firmly
integrated into a military alliance with the US and NATO. Moreover,
both Azerbaijan and Georgia have longstanding military cooperation
with Israel. Israel has a stake in the Azeri oil fields, from which it
imports some 20% of its oil.

In April 2006, Israel and Turkey announced plans for four underwater
pipelines, transporting water, electricity, natural gas and oil to
Israel, by-passing Syrian and Lebanese territory. The pipeline is
aimed bringing water to Israel, by pumping water from upstream
resources of the Tigris and Euphrates river system in Anatoli has been
a long-run strategic objective of Israel to the detriment of Syria and
Iraq.

In its context, the BTC pipeline dominated by British Petroleum and
American interest, has dramatically changed the geopolitics of the
Eastern Mediterranean, which is now linked , through an energy
corridor, to the strategic Caspian sea basin. But there is more at
stage here.

The geographical fact is that Ceyhan and the Mediterranean port of
Ashkelon are situated only 400 km apart. Oil can be transported to
that port in tankers or through a specially constructed under-water
pipeline. From Ashkelon the oil can be pumped through already existing
pipeline to the port of Eilat at the Red Sea, which had been very
active during betters days between the Shah’s Iran and Israel during
the Sixties. From Eilat oil it can be transported to India and Far
Eastern countries in tankers, thus outflanking the vulnerable Hurmoz
straits.

Last May, the Jerusalem Post published an article that Turkey and
Israel are negotiating the construction of a multi-million-dollar
energy and water project that will transport water, electricity,
natural gas and oil by pipelines to Israel, with the oil to be sent
onward from Israel to the Far East.

Antalya Mayor Menderes Turel mentioned this in a press conference. The
project, which would likely receive foreign economic backing, is
currently undergoing a feasibility study sponsored by the
Luxembourg-based European Investment Bank.

The United States’ ultimate strategic design is intended primarily to
weaken Russia’s role in Central Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean,
whileisolating Iran from this important energy source.

Iran being not only a major oil producing country is also a direct
stepping stone between the Caspian region and the Persian Gulf. As
such, it would certainly like to see Caspian oil flowing through its
territory rather than through Turkey. Moreover, having full control
over the Persian Gulf shipping lanes, through its military control on
the strategic Hormuz strait, Iran could virtually strangle, at will,
all international oil supplies, if political pressure on its nuclear
program intensifies.

Iran’s claim to Caspian oil dates back to the last century when the
Russian Empire and Persia, later Iran signed agreements in 1921 and
1940 recognizing the Caspian Sea as a lake belonging to and divided
between them. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Iran
wanted this agreement to continue despite assertions of independence
by the breakaway states of Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.

Five years ago, the official Iranian news agency IRNA quoted a
statement of the Iranian Oil Ministry as saying that it protests
prospecting by foreign companies in Iran’s claimed 20 percent sector
of the Caspian Sea. The warning came a day after Iran summoned
Azerbaijan’s charge d’affaires in Tehran to protest plans by the
state-run oil company of Azerbaijan, Socar, to carry out oil
exploration studies with foreign companies at the Alborz oil field "in
Iran’s sector of the Caspian Sea." Iran even threatened with military
action if its warnings would remain unheeded and indeed, on July 23,
2001 in blatant violation of international law, an Iranian warship and
two fighter jets forced a research vessel working on behalf of British
Petroleum (BP)-Amoco in the Araz-Alov-Sharg field out of that sector.

In fact, the BTC pipeline is far from secure by itself. Western
intelligence reports indicate that Iran republican guards (IRGC) are
carefully expanding support for subversive elements in Armenia, a
country which is still technically at war with Azerbaijan. It is well
known, that in the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh the conflict
between Armenian and Azeris is still going on.

Armenian nationalists might decide to attack the BTC in order to hurt
Azerbaijan, which derives most of its income from oil sales. The
pipeline route passes through or near seven different war-zones. Its
route passes just 10 miles from Nagorno-Karabakh, the area of
Azerbaijan occupied by Armenia, where a bloody conflict killed at
least 25,000 people It passes through Georgia, which remains unstable,
with separatist movements in Abkhazia and South Ossetia – movements
which the Georgian government tried to violently suppress during the
1990s. Just across the border into Russia, and still only 70 miles
from the BTC pipeline route, the horrific conflict in Chechnya
continues. The region also saw related conflict in neighboring
Dagestan in 1999, and fighting between the Russian republics of North
Ossetia and Ingushetia in 1992. In Turkey, the BTC route passes
through the edge of the area of the conflict between the Turkish state
and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), now known as Kongra-Gel. And
Russia, by all means, is unlikely to view this new American strategic
move without adequate response.

Moscow defense ministry sources pointed out recently, that the planned
Russian naval base in _Tartus_
( 206/analysis/analysis-231206.htm)
will enable Russia to solidify its positions in the Middle East under
the pretext to ensure security of Syria. Moscow intends to deploy an
air defense system around the base – to provide air cover for the base
itself and a substantial part of Syrian territory. It could also
conduct underwater activities to sabotage submerged pipelines, or at
least threaten to do so, if its demand will not be adhered to. A
dangerous situation could emerge, if Israeli and Russian activities in
the Eastern mediterranean could clash with each other on matters of
highly strategic interests.

Read David Eshel’s past commentary
( /1206/analysis/analysis-171206.htm)

Copyright 2007, Defense Update