Changing Balances In Turkish Energy Game Before The Coup

Authors : Oğuzhan AKYENER

Pages : 28-37

View : 11 | Download : 9

Publication Date : 2016-09-01

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :Turkey, with its growing economy, nearly 80 million population and increasing energy demand is one of the most important countries in energy politics of its region. Due to insufficient proven oil and gas reserves, and not having a suitable environment to efficiently develop her renewable energy resources, Turkey’s energy policies used to encapsulate only “sustainability on meeting the energy demand” item. In the last two decades, Turkey steadily and successfully keeps leaping on economic – industry – technology and trade areas, which, indeed, grows the Turkish energy demand faster and faster. While the demand is growing and Turkish influence in the region is flourishing, Turkey has been trying to develop and execute new energy strategies, for example; “to become an energy transit hub in the region”, “to support the domestic renewable energy investments and technology productions”, “to take part in more international oil & gas projects”, “to construct nuclear power plants”, “to actively support domestic coal investments”. Naturally within the concept of some of these strategies, successful steps have been taken that some of which have not yielded satisfactory results. However, in general, its visionaries in energy strategies and politics are in harmony with its economic growth.  With its increasing influence in the region, flourishing of the productivity and  of its populace, growing economy and political and strategical foresight rise young Turkey’ consciousness to focus on a global visionary insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(as it did throughout history);. These rapid strides may not have been observed specifically in the energy area, however, Turkey’s expectations stands high in all involved areas. Some international forces have been trying very hard in order to keep Turkey under control. At constant pace, steadily growing Turkey has been tussling with some political troubles since 2012. These troubles can be exampled as: “the unrest at Gezi Park”, “17 th and 25 th December operations” and “15 July coup attempt”. All of them aimed at weakening Turkey but none of these attempts were able to tackle the growing power of Turkish Moon & Star. In contrast to their goals, Turks has eagerly got united at each planned attempt, however, each intervention disintegrated the country as it had to concentrate on defying each attack. Turkey had to defer some important items from its agenda such as energy in the midterm. In this paper, to be able to investigate if the 15 July terrorist coup were related with the energy policies of Turkey, and if the key factors expressed so far affect the Turkish energy equation before the coup. Naturally, this will not mean that the main reason of the coup was energy, however, possible interrelations will be tried to be emerged from the outcomes. Before starting to evaluate the key factors related to Turkish energy equation, some clues about the subcontractor terrorist group Fetullah Gulen Terrorist Group insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(FETO);, which is the apparent mastermind of the coup, will be deciphered.
Keywords : Turkish energy game, turkish coup, changing balances energy