Putin's latest proposal has attracted high public attention in building "Europe's largest natural gas hub" in Türkiye. Moscow's every move in energy policy has already made Europe extremely sensitive.

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Building "Europe's largest natural gas hub" in Turkey , and the latest proposal of Putin has aroused high public attention.

Every move in Moscow's energy policy has already made Europe extremely sensitive. Putin's public proposal on this for two consecutive days has obviously touched the nervous nerves of Europe. However, if even Berlin rejects gas transmission through the " Nordic-2" natural gas pipeline, how likely is the EU to consider this new suggestion that "may bring huge changes to Russia's energy export map" is quite doubtful.

Turkey has not given a positive response so far. Since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Ankara has always wanted to play the role of "mediationist" between Russia, Ukraine, Europe and the United States, and facilitate the first direct negotiation between Russia and Ukraine, especially the conclusion of a food export agreement, which has won many highlights for itself. Will Putin's latest proposal become an opportunity for Türkiye to become a regional energy center? Ankara is still thinking.

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html On the 313th, Putin held a bilateral meeting with Erdogan during the Asian Information Summit in Astana. The one-and-a-half-hour talks were mainly closed-door, so Putin’s brief speech before the meeting mentioned that increasing gas transmission to Europe through Turkey became a major concern.

According to Russian media reports, Putin directly made this suggestion to Erdogan during the talks:

If Turkey and potential buyers from other countries are interested, they can consider establishing another natural gas pipeline system and building a natural gas hub in Turkey for sale to other countries. "Of course, it's Europe first, if they're interested." According to Putin's description, the hub of

will not only be used for supply, but also for pricing natural gas. He said that the price of natural gas in the market is too high and with a new hub, it can be adjusted at a normal market level, "without any political color."

A sentence "without any political color", Putin's direction immediately became clear:

is to deal with the severe sanctions against the United States and Europe in the oil and gas field.

One day before, on the 12th, when attending the "Russia Energy Week" international forum in Moscow, Putin had publicly expressed the idea that "may bring huge changes to Russia's energy export map."

He released two "possibility" in his speech: one is that an undamaged branch of the "North Stream-2" natural gas pipeline can still supply natural gas to Europe. But at the same time, that is, the second possibility, Russia can also transfer natural gas transported through the "Northern Stream" to the direction of Black Sea , supply gas to Europe through Turkey, and build the largest natural gas hub in Europe in Turkey.

However, the first possibility was almost immediately excluded by Berlin.

So, will this prompt Moscow to accelerate the implementation of the idea of ​​"Türkiye Hub"?

is currently "not clear", Frankfurt Review Newspaper asked and answered questions and felt a little unsure. After all, Russian Vice Premier Novak, who is in charge of energy affairs, and Russian Gazprom CEO Miller, also responded to the proposal, saying that "this idea is very promising."

At this time, Ankara's attitude obviously became a key.

There has been no "direct response" from Erdor in the media public reports so far. However, according to Russian Presidential Press Secretary Peskov, the leaders of Russia and Turkey "immediately" instructed to study related issues during the talks, and even discussed various options.

htmlOn the 312th, the Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources also made a statement at the "Russian Energy Week" forum: Although this is the first time that Turkey has heard such a proposal, it is too early to comment, but "this is technically feasible."

After all, the two countries already have the "Türkiye Creek" project cooperation.

The "Türkiye Creek" that was put into operation in 2020 is Russia's pipeline system for transporting natural gas to Türkiye and southern Europe. The project is divided into two lines. The first line is a gas supply pipeline to Türkiye through the Black Sea bottom, and the second line is a gas supply pipeline to southern Europe through Turkey.

to build a new gas pipeline in the same direction, "absolutely possible".

But whether to accept the Russian proposal depends on Ankara's specific considerations.

As some Russian media quoted experts' analysis, accepting these project suggestions, Türkiye will receive huge investment and is even expected to replace Germany's "natural gas hub" in Europe in the future. This undoubtedly helps to increase Türkiye's own influence .

But can the US and European camps, which are already dissatisfied with Ancardo, continue to tolerate it? At present, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is still in a stalemate. As a member of , NATO , he has strengthened his "binding" with Moscow. Can Türkiye pass the barrier between Washington and European capitals? Will this backfire and instead compress Türkiye's space for mediation and exert special influence between Russia and the West?

Putin praised Ankara as the "most reliable route" for transporting natural gas to Europe, but the Erdor government obviously still has many issues to weigh.

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From Tehran on July 19 to Sochi on August 5, from Samarkand on September 16 to Astana today... Erdogan frequently meets Putin.

Two people start to communicate for 30 minutes each time, and three or four hours are common. The media specifically recorded that before the Tehran talks, Erdogan asked Putin to wait for an extra minute; he also left behind the scenes of Putin personally sending Erdogan into the car during the Sochi meeting, and even waved to watch...

At present, many people regard it as the highlight moment of Ankara and Erdogan.

At the 75th UN General Assembly held last month, Erdogan enjoyed the praise of New York Times mainstream media such as New York Times , because of his "diplomacy efforts and success" in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

It is estimated that Erdogan was a little dazed. Once upon a time, these American and Western media frequently whispered Turkey and others due to arms sales, human rights, Kurdish, " Gulen Movement ". Changes such as

originated from the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

Although the second day of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine broke out, Erdogan criticized Russia's "special military operations" for being unacceptable and violating international law . But as the conflict continued, Turkey became the only NATO country to not impose economic sanctions on Russia. It also continued its economic cooperation with Russia and tried to settle imported natural gas with Russia using rubles.

Ankara has not forgotten Ukraine either. It provided weapons to Ukraine, especially the TB2 drone , which caused a certain blow to the Russian army. Moscow even claimed that factories that manufacture such drones would become direct targets of the Russian army.

Türkiye has therefore become a country among regional countries that can interact with Moscow and Kiev . With Türkiye's direct mediation, Russia and Ukraine signed food export agreements with Istanbul and Türkiye respectively.

"Relying on its role in food trading, Türkiye has successfully positioned itself as Russia's diplomatic channel to the international community."

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Since this year, we have seen that UN Secretary-General Guterres German Chancellor Scholz Polish President Duda and other political leaders have visited Ankara one after another. President Biden , French President Macron , then British Prime Minister Johnson and others have all opened up Erdogan's phone number, and Turkey's "two-way diplomacy" has won the "C position" for itself in regional countries.

The main starting point for diplomacy One of the points comes from Turkey.

Turkey is experiencing the worst economic crisis in more than 20 years. Official latest data shows that Turkey's CPI in September rose 83.45% from the same period last year, setting a new high in 24 years.

high inflation Next, Ankara did not choose to raise interest rates , but did the opposite: cut interest rates. This year, it has been cut by 200 basis points to 12%. What is even more surprising is that such a rate cut seems to be not the end. Erdogan said last month: "I hope that at the next meeting of the Central Bank of Turkey, we will lower the interest rate to single digits and lower the interest rate a little further before the end of the year. ”

His determination is firm: “I will never compromise on this issue, because interest rates are a chronic disease that makes the rich richer and the poorer poorer. "

No matter whether the road to interest rate cuts can be done or not, Erdogan is determined.

In addition to the rate cuts themselves, Turkey hopes that with the help of economic cooperation and energy support with Russia, etc., can alleviate economic difficulties such as high food and energy prices before the upcoming presidential election and parliamentary elections in June next year.

And, this is also an opportunity to reshape Turkey's relations with the West.

Turkey's relations with the West have continued to deteriorate in the past decade. At the worst, Ankara once threatened to expel ambassadors from 10 Western countries. The West also did not like Turkey. Some international issue observers once described it like this: "At the main summit, Erdogan threw himself into a lonely figure. "

But this situation has changed since the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

Some scholars use "Chinese" to summarize the characteristics of Turkey in international politics.

Geographically, Turkey is at the center of connectivity between Asia, Africa and Europe; culturally, Turkey is at the middle of Islamic civilization and Western civilization; in terms of national scale, Turkey is at the center of connectivity between Asia, Africa and Europe; It (the population ranks 18th in the world and the territory area ranks 36th in the world) is between big and small countries; in terms of economic level, Turkey (the 2022 estimate released by the International Monetary Fund ranks 106th in the world) is between rich and poor countries; in terms of transportation, Turkey is at the center of resource exporters and importers.

Turkey plays the role of "middleman" of Russia and Ukraine this time, and it also cannot be separated from the word "middle".