"Turkey: Europe’s Emerging Energy Corridor for Central Eurasian, Caucasian and Caspian Oil and Gas
1/20/2007 (Balkanalysis.com)
By Mehmet Efe Biresselioglu*
One important geopolitical consequence of the demise of the Soviet Union was the rise of intense political and commercial competition for control of the vast energy resources of the eight newly independent and vulnerable states of Central Eurasia: the sub-region of Central Asia, consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan; and the sub-region of the Caucasus, consisting of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Another effect was the change of control of the Caspian Sea basin from two littoral states, which had been the Soviet Union and Iran, to the five countries of Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Enormous oil and natural gas reserves attracted the major actors of the world into the region, and analysts early on dubbed it a new chapter in the old “Great Game.”"
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