"...Although Turkey’s state oil and gas pipeline company, Botaş, has been able to meet domestic demand by turning to more expensive imports from Russia and its neighbors, these attacks have serious implications for Turkey’s energy ambitions. PKK pipeline sabotage, as well as its ongoing insurgency against Turkish military forces and populations, comes at a time when Turkey is trying secure more energy suppliers, namely in Iraq where Turkish state and private companies are heavily invested. PKK attacks, as well as ongoing instability on the Iraqi side, could stifle Turkey’s aim to increase cheap oil and gas imports —and the lucrative pipeline tariff revenues linked to it. Ongoing PKK violence will also require Ankara to assume greater responsibility in assuring pipeline security, particularly if it wants the private sector to help build pipelines in southeastern Turkey. ........ as the PKK and Kurdish issue becomes enflamed in Syria, as Iraqi Sunni Arabs become increasingly critical of KRG energy plans in disputed territories, and as Turkey’s 2014 elections start to loom on Ankara’s horizon, the prospects of further autonomizing the KRG through its own pipeline are grimmer than ever. Without an alternative export route or a national hydrocarbons law, the KRG will be further pressed to negotiate with Baghdad or run its own energy sector as a large trucking operation. ..."
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