Baku, Azerbaijan, June 22
By Anakhanum Idayatova - Trend:
In the longer term, there are more options for Turkey to buy non-Russian gas, whether it is from Israel, maybe Cyprus, or Egypt, Iraq, Northern Iraq, Turkmenistan - there are lots of alternatives, Matthew Bryza, former US Assistant Secretary of State for South Caucasus and former US ambassador to Azerbaijan, told Trend June 22.
Of course, Turkey is trying to reduce its dependence on Russian natural gas, but that will take some time, he added.
“Azerbaijan is the country from which Turkey would like to buy more gas,” said Bryza. “Hopefully, Azerbaijan and Turkey will find a way to arrange this, for example, if some or all of the 10 billion cubic meters sold to European buyers from the Shah Deniz 2 project were to remain in Turkey.”
Turkey is also planning to increase significantly the ability to import liquefied natural gas including from the US, said Bryza.
In the short term, Turkey's possibilities are limited, but in the longer term, Russia risks losing its second largest market for its natural gas, he added.
Bryza believes that neither Turkey nor Russia want to get to this point and both countries would like to back to normal economic relations, especially, Russia’s Gazprom company.
“I think it is in both countries’ interest to normalize the relations,” he added.
Bryza said he thinks Russia’s President Vladimir Putin knows that his country is suffering from sanctions, his people can’t take vacations that are affordable and comfortable in Turkey, people have much lower quality food to eat.
“He [Putin] wants normal relations, but I think, he does want to show that,” added Bryza.
He pointed out that definitely, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to normalize the relations and he made that clear by the sending a congratulatory letter to Putin on the occasion of Russia Day.
The former ambassador recalled that Erdogan has repeatedly offered to meet with Putin, but the latter has refused.
So, President Putin wants apology for the SU-24 incident, according to Bryza.
He believes that at least Erdogan will make a gesture and Putin will accept this as a kind of apologize and the relations will move on.
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