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Iran Rejects Turkmen Proposal For Gas Shipments To Turkey

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RFE/RL.Energy politics around the Caspian Sea breeds complications, as a recent example involving Turkmenistan, Iran, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia reminds us.

Turkmenistan is in a serious bind. The country has the fourth-largest natural gas reserves in the world but currently has only one customer — China — at a time when Turkmenistan’s economy appears to be spiraling downward.

Turkmenistan would likely sell gas to anyone at this point, considering its extreme revenue shortages, and needs to start selling to someone, soon.

So, according to reports from October 23-25, Turkmenistan is proposing a gas-swap deal with Iran to get Turkmen gas to Turkey, where it could be pumped into the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) that is currently under construction.

Iranian National Gas Company (INGC) Director Hamid Reza Araki, who is also deputy oil minister, replied that Iran was not “positively disposed” to the idea.

That response is hardly surprising.

Since the late 1990s, Turkmenistan has been shipping gas to northern Iran, an area that is poorly connected to Iran’s gas-rich south.

At the end of 2016, Turkmenistan demanded Iran pay somewhere around $2 billion (the figure is not entirely clear) for supplies of Turkmen gas to northern Iran during the winter of 2007-08.

Iran countered that the figure was too high and claimed that Turkmenistan had jacked up the gas price during that particularly bitter winter to $360 per 1,000 cubic meters, about nine times the usual price at the time.

Last-minute negotiations before the new year appeared to end in an agreement, but on January 1 Turkmenistan shut off the gas supplies — and they have remained off.

Iran says Turkmenistan illegally broke the contract and has periodically threatened to take Turkmenistan to international arbitration.

With that as a backdrop, there is little wonder Araki indicated that Tehran has no enthusiasm for helping Turkmenistan.

But Araki mentioned another reason the Turkmen proposal was never likely to be met with sympathy in Tehran.

“We are against the sale of a rival country’s gas to Turkey via swap operations,” Araki stated, an indication that even if the debt dispute between Turkmenistan and Iran is resolved, there is little hope Iran will ever cooperate in exporting Turkmen gas to Turkey.

There is no pipeline running the length of northern Iran from the Turkmen to Turkish border, so Ashgabat wants a swap: Turkmenistan exports gas for use in northern Iran, and Iran pumps a like amount into a pipeline (or one day probably pipelines) leading to Turkey.

TANAP is the prize for both Turkmenistan and Iran.

TANAP, a 1,840-kilometer pipeline to bring gas from Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz-2 Caspian Sea field across Turkey to Europe, is currently under construction and is tentatively scheduled to be launched next year.

In its initial stages, TANAP will carry only Azerbaijani gas. But as the pipeline expands capacity on its way to eventually reaching some 60 billion cubic meters (bcm), there will be space for gas from other countries.

Turkmenistan would like to be one of those countries, but Iran — and potentially Iraq and northeastern Syria — are better positioned to provide gas to TANAP.

However, Turkmen gas is, and, according to INGC chief Araki, will continue moving to the west, at least as far as Azerbaijan.

Araki said Iran had no objections to a gas swap with Turkmenistan as concerns gas for Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan is a gas producer, but it purchases Turkmen gas during the summer, when the price is low, to make “maximum use of the commercial potential of storage facilities” of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR).

Reports did not mention the amount of Turkmen gas Azerbaijan purchases, but it could not be very much.

SOCAR buys Turkmen gas in the summer to “top off” its gas storage facilities, then resells the gas in winter at a profit.

Armenia is hoping for a similar arrangement and has offered to mediate the Turkmen-Iranian debt dispute in an agreement that would see a Turkmen-Iranian gas swap supplying gas to Armenia.

On October 20, Armenia’s minister of energy infrastructure and natural resources, Ashot Manukian, claimed that “we have proposed our involvement in settling debt-management issues between Turkmenistan and Iran, and they have accepted our proposal.”

Ashgabat certainly has not confirmed this, and it is difficult to see why Turkmenistan would agree to the Armenian proposal.

Manukian’s solution would see Iran settle its debt by shipping gas to Armenia; Armenia would then pay off Tehran’s debt to Ashgabat, but by barter, not cash.

Barter was exactly the deal Turkmenistan had with Iran before the dispute erupted.

Ashgabat had agreed to accept goods and services as compensation for the first $3 billion worth of gas exported to Iran, though Ashgabat was trying to renegotiate that agreement since Iranian gas imports rarely exceeded $3 billion.

Turkmenistan’s government wants cash, not goods, so it is difficult to see how the Armenian deal would suit Ashgabat.

Additionally, Turkmenistan did sell gas to Armenia in the 1990s via Russian pipelines and Armenia was regularly deep in debt for those supplies.

And, in any case, Manukian indicated Turkmenistan would probably be competing even for the small Armenian gas market.

Manukian said Armenia was ready to import more gas from Iran “if Iran offers lower prices.”

Manukian noted that Armenia also purchases gas from Russia for $150 per 1,000 cubic meters; meaning that if Iran, and presumably Turkmenistan, could sell their gas for less than that amount, Yerevan would be interested.

So it seems that Turkmenistan’s possibilities to export gas westward are, at best, limited.

It is interesting that Turkmenistan made the swap offer to Iran.

After all the acrimony this year in Turkmen-Iranian ties, Turkmen officials must have known the offer would probably get a cold reception in Tehran.

But Ashgabat made the offer all the same, because there are so few options and so little time left for the Turkmen regime to turn the country’s economy around.

Curfew imposed in Iraq’s Kirkuk after clashes between Kurds and Turkmen over Kurdistan vote

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A Kurdish man walks in the street in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk on September 18, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

Iraqi police have imposed a curfew in the northern city of Kirkuk, which witnessed skirmishes between Kurds and Turkmen days before a controversial Kurdish referendum on independence from the mainland.

The Iraqi Kurds plan to hold the plebiscite on September 25 in three provinces that make up their region, as well as in disputed areas that are controlled by Kurdish forces but claimed by Baghdad, including the oil-rich Kirkuk Province.

Baghdad has slammed the upcoming vote as unconstitutional, calling on the Kurdish leadership to drop the plan.

On Monday, Iraq’s top court temporarily suspended the Kurdish independence referendum, saying it “issued a national order to suspend the referendum procedures … until the resolution of the cases regarding the constitutionality of said decision.” Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi also formally asked the Kurdish officials to halt the process.

Later in the day, gunmen opened fire on one of the Kirkuk offices of the Iraqi Turkmen Front political movement, which is opposed to the Kurdish vote.

Mohammed Samaan Kanaan, in charge of the Front’s offices, told The Associated Press that guards returned fire, killing one and wounding two of the assailants.

Hours later, a police patrol attacked another office of the Iraqi Turkmen Front, but there were no casualties, he added.

Afterwards, Kirkuk was placed under a nighttime curfew, with provincial police chief, Brigadier General Khattab Omar saying that an investigation committee was probing the incident.

He blamed Monday’s clashes on “reckless enthusiastic youths” and said that arrests have been made.

Locals said Iraqi police had deployed overnight in Kirkuk to prevent any outbreak of ethnic violence ahead the Kurdish vote.

Last week, Iraqi Kurdish lawmakers approved holding the secession vote in the face of fierce opposition from the central government in Baghdad.

The United Nations and the US as well as regional powers like Iran and Turkey have also expressed concerns about the planned referendum by the semi-autonomous Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), arguing that it could create further instability in the already volatile region.

The president of Iraq’s Kurdistan region, Massoud Barzani, said once again late Monday that he would proceed with the referendum despite warnings at home and abroad.

Iraq, the trench of discord between Kurds and Turkmen

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“Beginning of the division of Iraq”, “violation of international law”: the Turkoman minority in Iraq condemned the construction by the Iraqi Kurds in a long trench hundreds of kilometers, officially presented as a defense against the jihadists.

“We see this trench as the beginning of the division of Iraq. It would be the implementation on the ground of a redrawn geopolitical map, “he told AFP the party leader Iraqi Turkmen Front, Archad al-Salehi.

The government of the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, which extends into northern Iraq, defends it to any expansionist aim, arguing that the trenches, three meters wide and two deep, is only intended to prevent jihadist attacks of the Islamic State (EI).

But officials from the Turkmen community, the route of the deep ditch raises suspicion.

According to them, the trench will cross the western Iraq is, from the town of Rabia bordering Syria than Khanaqine, near the Iranian border.

It largely follow the 1000 kilometers of the front line between Kurdish fighters and those of EI.

But the Kurdish fighters, the peshmerga, are present beyond the borders of their region, after defeating the EI in areas where the Iraqi military had fled.

The trench would allow them to include these territories in Iraqi Kurdistan although there not belong according to present boundaries, denounced the Turkmen also called Turkmens.

- Preserving the unity of Iraq –

They are worried because these areas contain many of them.

“70-80% of the territories (which would pass the Kurdish side of the trench) are populated by Turkmen,” said Mehdi Saadoun, a militant of the Foundation for Relief Turkomans.

“The cities of Tal Afar, Kirkuk and Tuz pass Khourmatou the side of Iraqi Kurdistan if the government does not apply the law preserving the unity of Iraq,” he warned.

This vast country in the Middle East has many minorities including the Kurds, whose population is estimated at about four million, and Turkmen on which there are no recent statistics encrypted.

Iraqi Turkomans have maintained in the past difficult relations with the Kurds. Ethnic rivalries have come to light since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in April 2003 and by the Kurds claim Kirkuk.

The government of Iraqi Kurdistan has admitted recently accelerated fortification of its defenses against the IE but firmly rejects any political project.

“This trench is a defensive system against car bombs used by Daech (Arabic acronym EI),” insisted a spokesman for Iraqi Kurdish fighters, Jabar Yawar.

“It will not be built everywhere, some areas do not need. It will be for military officials to decide “its route, he added.

The excavation work has not started Touz Khourmatou but they began near Kirkuk, a city located in a rich oil region and to Jalawla, near the Iranian border, according to the Turkmen officials.

For Jassem Mohammed Jaafar, a Turkmen Parliament, the trench “violates international conventions and the rights of people who will be forced to live on each other.”

Salehi called Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to take a stand against this controversial trench.

AFP

Syrian Turkmen commander who ‘killed’ Russian pilot turns out to be Turkish ultranationalist

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56585a5fc36188f5688b460cA Syrian rebel commander who boasted of killing a Russian pilot after Turkey downed Russian jet on Tuesday appeared to be Turkish ultranationalist and a son of former mayor in one of Turkish provinces.

Alparslan Celik, deputy commander of a Syrian Turkmen brigade turned out to be the son of a mayor of a Keban municipality in Turkey’s Elazig province.

He also turned out to be the member of The Grey Wolves ultranationalist group, members of which have carried out scores of political murders since 1970s.

Celik came under spotlight after he announced that as the two Russian pilots descended by parachute after the Su-24 jet was downed by Turkish military, both were shot dead by Turkmen forces on Tuesday.

A graphic video posted earlier on social media purported to show a Russian pilot lying on the ground surrounded by a group of armed militants.

For more watch RT’s William Whiteman’s report.

https://youtu.be/ymKnnMJjtFA

Is Kirkuk next Kosovo? #Turkey is training Iraqi Sunni Turkmen just like what they did with KLA

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n_81040_1Turkish officers are participating in the training of 800 Sunni and Turkmen fighters in a camp located in al-Shikhan district 12 kilometers north of Mosul in northern Iraq.

The fighters receive military techniques including defusing explosive devices, a commander told Anadolu Agency on April 14.

http://globalsecuritystudies.com/NATO%20and%20the%20KLA%20TWO.pdf

The 1999 NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia had the dubious distinction of being the first time NATO aligned itself with a terrorist organization fighting an insurgency against a sovereign state. Defying the UN Security Council, the United States and its allies bombed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for 78 days, providing vital air support for the Kosovo Liberation Army. The result of this open for support for the KLA has helped to encourage ethnic Albanian separatists to use terrorism to start insurgencies in Serbia

Kurdish-Turkmen tension on the rise in Kirkuk

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Kirkuk’s Turkmen vow to take up arms if the city is not returned to Iraqi central government.

Aljazeera Kirkuk, Iraq – Wearing a flak jacket with a pistol on his hip, the president of the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF), Arshad Salihi, announced yesterday the mobilisation 2014617123322313734_20of a new Turkmen militia in the city of Kirkuk, saying that if the Kurdish Peshmerga forces “refuse to return Kirkuk [to the Iraqi government] we will fight back”.

Heavily armed men gathered at the offices of the ITF in Kirkuk.  The announcement came after Kurdish forces seized control of the city on June 12 following the complete withdrawal of Iraqi army forces in the face of rapid advances by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militants.

Yousif Mohammed Sadiq, the parliamentary speaker of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), said that the KRG has no plans to hand back control of Kirkuk, a city which has long been at the centre of disputes between the KRG and Baghdad.

Kirkuk has been extremely important to the Kurds both culturally and economically. It is a mixed city with Kurdish, Arab, Turkmen and Assyrian populations and is frequently subject to attacks on the security forces and civilians carried out by militants aligned with al-Qaeda. Large oil reserves in the region of Kirkuk are a major factor in the dispute over control of the city.

RELATED: Analysis: The Kurds take Kirkuk, now what?

Many observers argue that after gaining complete military control of Kirkuk without confrontation, it is highly improbable that the KRG will relinquish it.

A statement on the KRG’s website said that: “People living in areas under Peshmerga control … have nothing to fear because the Peshmerga will loyally protect them.”

The secretary-general of the Kurdish security forces, Jabber Yawar, reiterated this to Al Jazeera, saying of the ITF’s statement: “This is media propaganda. Today the Peshmerga are fighting to protect [the Turkmen village of] Mullah Bashir and fighting ISIL there. In Kirkuk, the Peshmerga are there to protect all the different ethnicities.”

However, Salihi expressed concern that “without the Iraqi army there will be radical political achievements for other sides”.

He went on to clarify that he was referring to the KRG framing his response in belligerent terms; “If they try to impose something that we do not accept, how can we live together? If today we don’t have forces, tomorrow we will have. We are asking people to carry weapons and defend themselves.”

The ITF’s announcement came a day after the predominantly Turkmen city of Tal Afar, west of Mosul, fell to insurgents from ISIL.

A Turkmen engineer from Kirkuk who asked to remain anonymous, said: “We don’t trust the Peshmerga because they only look after their own interests. They opened the gates of the army bases and allowed normal people to take what they want. Then they allowed those weapons to be sold on the street. This is evidence that they do not care about law and order in Kirkuk. How can we trust them? People are saying that yesterday they looted the army bases, tomorrow they may loot our shops.”

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/06/kurdish-turkmen-tension-rise-kirkuk-2014617122142958412.html

Turkey: The deep state serving Syrian Islamists A direct illustration of the illusory nature of condolences to Erdogan about Armenians (Video)

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By: Laurent Leylekian
Political analyst

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On the occasion of the 99th anniversary of the Genocide that struck Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister, presented unpublished condolences to his fellow Armenians and Armenians worldwide. The international press has widely reported the matter, usually in a positive way and making little account of the deep malaise has provoked among the recipients of these putative condolences. I expressed myself on the semantic perversion of condolence show that indeed the usual denialist discourse.
The Syrian news just give us a confirmation that nothing has changed, except perhaps the increasingly sophisticated communication Turkey in which it encapsulates the true nature of his relationship to the Armenians and intentions towards them.
Last March, in fact , let go Turkey Islamist militia al-Jabhat Nosra – the local branch of Al Qaeda – the town of Kessab Syria, the last village of the former Western Armenia destroyed since the genocide. Face outcry over the attack on a town no strategic interest – if not precisely that to erase the last traces of Armenian presence in the region – at great expense Ankara launched a “humanitarian operation”. It was intended to “repatriate safe” in Turkey a few old remained in the village, that is if this country can be described as “safe” for the descendants of those he murdered.

A Turkish secret services officer leads a band jihadist Syria

A recently released video shows as an “Arab combatant” help some Trtrian Luther – a resident of Kessab – to gather her belongings essential for exfiltré to Turkey. Shortly after moreover, Luther Trtrian died there of a heart attack.
But according to KHeysem-topalcaurdish sources informed the alleged “Arab fighter” in question is indeed Heysem Topalca agent MIT – the Turkish secret services. This Turkmen Syria is also designated by the same source as the “brigade commander of the Turkmen district Bayırbucak” in Syria.
Two pieces of information in one, so: they are officers of the MIT – descendants in line with the sinister Special Organization was once responsible for the execution of the genocide – which still occupy the “fate” of Armenians and – secret – the Turkish state involved operationally in a war of aggression against neighboring Syria.

Protected members of al-Jabhat Nosra Turkish power

But better yet, Heysem Topalca is not exactly a stranger. Already in November 2013, the Zaman newspaper revealed that he was arrested in Adana during a routine inspection by Turkish police looking for drug trafficking. In fact, drug truck driven by Heysem Topalca contained nearly 1,000 rockets and a dozen RPG. The ensuing investigation led to the arrest of a Turkish ship carrying smuggled 20,000 Kalashnikovs to Syria by the Greek coastguard. It is this series of events and a few others which almost lead Turkey blacklist State funding terrorism described by Jonathan Schanzer .
Despite its central role in the case, Heysem Topalca was obviously released without further ado, since it is he who has appeared in recent days as the “commander of the Turkmen brigade” to Kessab. It has therefore not been bothered by the Turkish police, no more than it was six months ago as part of the investigation into the bombing Reyhanli .
la-bandeHeysem Topalca, Ayhan Orli and Muhammed Abdullah (Karinca)
accused of war crimes by a Turkish journalist.
Also according to Zaman indeed, two of the suspects were then interviewed mentioned Topalca as their local contact “supporting jihadists” and able to move cargo between Reyhanlı and Yayladagi, two locations in Sanjak of Alexandretta (Turkey), the second being last resort before Kessab Syria. In order to be released, the suspects had said “we can not get closer to Reyhanlı. This area is owned by the jihadists who would kill us if they saw us. [The attack], it is certainly his work. “

 

Information that confirms the journalist Ömer Ödemiş saying, moreover, that Topalca Turkmen and others – including the Adil and Ayhan Orli brothers – have formed an army of 300 fighters who trained in Turkey before moving to Syria to commit all kinds of abuses. It is in this context that Adil Orli is regularly presented as the “commander of the Turkmen” , one of the countless factions operating in northern Syria. In a video of “promotion” of their movement , it actually sees Adil Orli (1’20” and 4’46” for example) and Heysem Topalca (at 1’28”) appear together.

23 March 2014 – Adil Orli (circled) and some of his supporters after taking the observatory 45

The far-right Turkish maneuvering

Information that did not seem to move more than that Turkish investigators. But in their defense, I must say that these terrorists seem to enjoy strong complicity in the deep state, although the exact map of their respective duties is not clearly established. Thus, the reporter Ömer Ödemiş – even him – says that Adil Orli is in charge of relations with the Libyan Islamist groups (including Chechens) he would arrange the transfer to Syria via Turkey.
April 14, 2014 – Adil Orli and other militant before the truck to terrorists
These clandestine activities would take place through the MHP, the Nationalist Action Party, the most famous in Turkey and well represented within the security services of the country of extreme right training. An article published on April 28 advance and traffic transits through the “idealistic home” (this is the name locals MHP) Orhangazi in the region of Bursa in western Turkey. Presented a picture dated April 14 actually shows Adil Orli posing with MHP officials before a truckload of material which, according to the article, would be to armed gangs in Syria. Other photographs from the days following the show policy relay enjoyed this “Turkmen connection” Adil Orli seems particularly good terms with Dervis Tücel, deputy mayor of Tuzla and candidate for the parliamentary seat of Istanbul, a character Article refers to as “a close friend of Mehmet Ali Agca,” the gray-wolf who once tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II.
April 17, 2014 – Adil Orli and gray wolves Pendik (Istanbul)
The role of the MHP also seems to go further than a mere conduit. And some pictures taken in Syria show Hüseyin Bozan ( Photo header ), a “gray wolf” Orli close brothers do – a weapon in his hand – the rallying cry of the movement. Moreover, the Facebook page of the Turkmen Aleppo leaves little doubt about his affiliations as his involvement in the Syrian conflict.
Ayhan Orli received at the headquarters of the Great Union Party (BBP) by its chairman
If the MHP seems an important link in the chain, it is not the only one. Other information indicates that the Islamist split – the Great Union Party (BBP) – is no exception, and more high: an undated article and shows Mustafa Destici, the Chairman of BBP, welcome to the party headquarters Ayhan Orli in the presence of his two deputies. BBP have served Orli interest in the fate of Syrian Turkmen assuring its “material and moral support.”

Ankara hand behind the manipulation of Turkmen

It is obviously difficult to deduce from these certainties fragmented information but the fact is that it is tempting to exploit Ankara Turkmen minority border Arab countries to meet its imperialist designs on northern Syria and Iraq . Nationalist parties to pantouraniennes designs are certainly dreamed operational tools for this type of operation.
In Iraq, however, the agreements reached between Turkey and Kurdish Erbil authorities about the operation and the flow of oil could eventually undermine these plots. But it is not the same in Syria, where Ankara sees anxiously form along its border a strip of land dominated by Kurds PYD, local avatar PKK.

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http://eurotopie.leylekian.eu/2014/05/turquie-au-service-des-islamistes-syriens.html