Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec.21
By Leman Zeynalova - Trend:
The assassination of Russian ambassador in Turkey Andrey Karlov will not affect the implementation of the Turkish Stream project, Cyril Widdershoven, a Middle East geopolitical specialist and energy analyst, a partner at Dutch risk consultancy VEROCY and SVP MEA-Risk, told Trend Dec.21.
Karlov died after receiving fatal wound in an armed assault at an art gallery exhibition opening in Ankara late Dec. 19. Three other people were injured in the attack. The killer, Turkish off-duty police officer Mevlut Mert Altintas, has been eliminated. The Russian Foreign Ministry called the incident an act of terrorism.
“I don’t have the feeling that this will be the case. Both sides are economically now too much involved. The implementation of Turkish Stream will proceed as expected. There is nothing to gain for Moscow to block it right now,” said the expert.
Russia and Turkey signed an intergovernmental agreement October 10 on the implementation of the Turkish Stream project. The agreement involves construction of two branches of the main gas pipeline under the Black Sea, the power of each branch being 15.75 billion cubic meters of gas.
One branch is provided to supply gas directly to the Turkish market, the other for the supply of gas by transit through Turkey to Europe. The intergovernmental agreement also stipulates that these two offshore branches should be built by December 2019.
As for the overall bilateral ties between Russia and Turkey, Widdershoven said that the relationship will stay as it is, but a bit shaky maybe due to the assassination of the Russian ambassador.
“But there is too much at stake. Both parties are heavily putting their bets on a better relationship, focusing on the outcome of the Aleppo battle,” he said.
The assassination will be put in the media as ISIS or if not able to do that, as a Kurdish plot to involve Muslim extremists, according to the expert.
Some even expect that both Russia and Turkey will partly blame the West or maybe Arab sources for the current assassination, he added.
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