Turkey’s gas hub pipe dream

Erdogan and Putin’s rhetoric may be more about targeting domestic audiences than any realistic prospect of development

Russian president Vladimir Putin’s October proposal to turn Turkey into a regional hub for Russian gas met with rapid agreement by his Turkish counterpart Recep Erdogan. But even a gas-stressed Europe paid it barely a flicker of attention—in part because it seems now irrevocably committed to ending dependence on Russian pipeline gas by any route, and in part because the idea is fanciful in the current political climate. Turkey is already a gas hub of sorts, with inbound pipelines linking it to Russia, Iran and Azerbaijan, plus three LNG regasification facilities and outbound connections to Greece and Bulgaria. But the country’s aspirations for greater regional energy clout face significant c