TO NATO VIA NABUCCO
by Oleg Nikiforov

WPS Agency
What the Papers Say (Russia)
July 28, 2009 Tuesday
Russia

GEORGIA, AZERBAIJAN, AND OTHER POST-SOVIET COUNTRIES ARE PROMISED A
CHANCE AT NATO MEMBERSHIP; Nabucco vs South Stream: an update.

As soon as Turkey and four EU countries signed an agreement on
Nabucco in Ankara, some media outlets in the West began hailing it
as a triumph over Gazprom’s South Stream. Was it a triumph indeed?

Reinhard Mitschek, managing director of Nabucco Gas Pipeline
International, advised hotheads to hold their horses in his interview
with Radio Deutsche Welle. He said that the final investment
agreement on construction of the gas pipeline would only be signed
in 2010, i.e. after the signing of agreements with future suppliers
and consumers. Investments will be made only when gas shipment and
procurement contracts have been signed, he said. It will be the point
of no-return. Where the gas for the pipeline will be found and how
much gas will be needed remains to be seen yet.

Iraq, Egypt, and Azerbaijan were initially regarded as
suppliers. Turkmenistan joined this prospective list at a later
date. These days, some African countries like Nigeria are regarded as
potential participants in the project too. Still, Gazprom Enhanced
Coverage LinkingGazprom -Search using: Company Profile News, Most
Recent 60 Days is already there, discussing the matter with these
countries.

Participants in Nabucco are going out of their way to secure gas for
the future pipeline. RWE of Germany got a gas prospecting license
in the Turkmen sector of the Caspian Sea. RWE CEO Jurgen Grossman
and Turkmen President Gurbankuly Berdymuhammedov signed the treaty
in Turkmenbashi (former Krasnovodsk) three days after the agreement
signing in Ankara.

In any event, economic factors are not all that ought to be taken
into account. It is necessary as well to bear in mind the tricky
political situation in the Caucasus. It is made tricky by tension in
the relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh and
Georgia’s confrontation with Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Not exactly
theaters of operations at this point, all these areas remain sites of
latent conflicts – this is apparently why some promoters of Nabucco
say that Russia is welcome to join the project too.

Nabucco is scheduled to bring the first gas to customers in 2014. The
Russian-Italian Blue Stream is expected to become functional by that
time too. Rivalry between them promises to be vicious until then even
without big-time politics interfering. It is common knowledge after all
that the United States has been promoting Nabucco precisely in order
to keep the increase of Russia’s influence with Europe in check. It
means that Georgia and perhaps Azerbaijan too will be offered to join
NATO by artificially mitigated procedures. It is military-political
considerations and selection suppliers and customers that will then
become vital in determination of the future outcome of the race of
the two projects.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress