Araz ASLANLI
This article aims to have a brief look at the main steps toward TANAP, signed documents, features of TANAP, importance, prognosis about the scale and expenses of the project, positions of all sides and to the relations between TANAP and Nabucco.
First steps toward TANAP which was a surprise for many people were made at the end of 2011. Initially on October 25, 2011 Intergovernmental agreement was signed. On November 17, 2011 president of SOCAR Rovnag Abdullayev made a surprise for listenersand the media: “Azerbaijan and Turkey launch a new project starting from East to West borders of Anatolia and I am announcing its name for the first time here – Trans Anatolian Gas Pipeline”
Two things had a significant importance on the issue. Firstly, despite the fact that Azerbaijan and Turkey are two states of one nation and they have important political, military, economic and cultural relations, there was not any significant project involving these two states initiated only by their governments until this project. TANAP become the very first global scale project which was totally initiated by Azerbaijan and Turkey and have a chance to be realized only at the expense of resources of these two countries.
On the other side despite all the efforts of the United States of America (USA) and European partners there was not any serious result of realizing European energy security and “North Gas Corridor” proposed within the energy safety policy which is on the agenda for long years. In order to see the extent of the process for TANAP, it is enough just to remember minor results of negotiations, campaigns and widespread efforts for Nabucco.
After the first announcement of TANAP, materials on the importance of the issue and full of questions on how this process is going to influence Nabucco’s fate began to spread in world media. Was TANAP a rival or a supporter of Nabucco? Or maybe there was not a one-to-one relation between them? At first there were defensive evaluations for all three positions, but afterwards general idea was accepted that TANAP is actually an advantageous step for Nabucco.
Information about the costs of the project andweightof a pipeline were provided through time. It is thought that the reason why the information about TANAP was announced and numbers were raised step by step is that Azerbaijan’s balanced foreign policy strategy avoids facing with Russia. Most probably European Union officials (EU) were careful in their statements and were announcing positive messages about TANAP only after particular steps were carried out because of above mentioned reasons and because Nabucco was a good experience for EU.
Finally, on 26 June 2012 in Prime Ministry office in the Dolmabahche Palace in Istanbul with the participation of Ilham Aliyev and Receb Tayyib Erdogan high-level memorandum on TANAP were signed…
On 7 November 2012 Rovnag Abdullayev announced that SOCAR, BOTAS and TPAO have signed an agreement on shareholders and in accordance with this agreement TANAP Co. was established and started its activity in Turkey…
In January 2013 presidents signed Intergovernmental agreement…
SOCAR, BOTAS and TPAO are the first partners of consortium build for TANAP.
Full text in Azerbaijani: https://www.qafsam.org/page/411/az
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