Kurdistan Regional Government-Turkish energy relations: a complex partnership

摘要

We analyze the Kurdish Regional Government's (KRG's) fast developing energy relationship with Turkey, its implications for Turkey's energy security and, ultimately, regional security in general. Being landlocked, commentators tend to picture the KRG as a highly dependent entity, desperate to export its oil and gas through Turkey. While it is true that currently the KRG has no real alternative export routes other than Turkey, we argue that the energy relationship between the two is more complex than Turkey simply agreeing to this proposal as part of its energy diversification project. For Turkey, the dealings with the KRG present the next best thing to having its own oil and gas fields; high levels of control, partial ownership, and close proximity are all required by the country that is increasingly eking out its position as a regional patron. A further strong incentive for Turkey to develop this energy relationship is new opportunities to approach some of the country's oldest and newest threats, the conflict with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the developing PKK- influenced Kurdish movement in a fragmenting Syria.