{"id":40877,"date":"2018-11-24T06:59:18","date_gmt":"2018-11-24T11:59:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=40877"},"modified":"2018-11-24T06:59:18","modified_gmt":"2018-11-24T11:59:18","slug":"forget-nordstream-2-turkstream-is-the-prize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=40877","title":{"rendered":"Forget Nordstream 2, Turkstream is the Prize"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"entry-header\">\n<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/tomluongo.me\/2018\/11\/23\/forget-nordstream-2-turkstream-is-the-prize\/\">Forget Nordstream 2, Turkstream is the Prize<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>While the Trump Administration still thinks it can play enough games to derail the Nordstream 2 pipeline via sanctions and threats, the impotence of its position geopolitically was on display the other day as the final pipe of the first train of the Turkstream pipeline entered the waters of the Black Sea.<\/p>\n<p>The pipe was sanctioned by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who shared a public stage and held bilateral talks afterwards.\u00a0 I think it is important for everyone to watch the response to Putin\u2019s speech in its entirety.\u00a0 Because it highlights just how far Russian\/Turkish relations have come since the November 24th, 2015 incident where Turkey shot down a Russian SU-24 over Syria.<\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\"><iframe class=\"youtube-player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TkFR25SArYM?version=3&amp;rel=1&amp;fs=1&amp;autohide=2&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-ratio=\"0.5636094674556213\" data-width=\"676\" data-height=\"381\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<p>When you contrast this event with the strained and uninspired interactions between Erdogan and President Trump you realize that the world is moving forward despite the seeming power of the United States to derail events.<\/p>\n<p>And Turkey is the key player in the region, geographically, culturally and politically.\u00a0 Erdogan and Putin know this.\u00a0 And they also know that Turkey being the transit corridor of energy for Eastern Europe opens those countries up to economic and political power they haven\u2019t enjoyed in a long time.<\/p>\n<p>The first train of Turkstream will serve Turkey directly.\u00a0 Over the next couple of years the second train will be built which will serve as a jumping off point for bringing gas to Eastern and Southern Europe.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/russia-insider.com\/en\/gazprom-plots-gas-pipelines-bulgaria-serbia-hungary-and-slovakia\/ri25459\">Countries like Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, Greece, Serbia and Slovakia<\/a> are lining up for access to Turkstream\u2019s energy.\u00a0 This, again, is in stark contrast to the insanely expensive Southern Transport Corridor (STC) pipeline set to <a href=\"https:\/\/tomluongo.me\/2018\/01\/28\/pipeline-wars-realpolitik-meets-geography\/\">bring one-third the amount of gas to Italy at five times the initial cost<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Forget Nordstream 2, Turkstream is the Prize While the Trump Administration still thinks it can play enough games to derail the Nordstream 2 pipeline via sanctions and threats, the impotence of its position geopolitically was on display the other day as the final pipe of the first train of the Turkstream pipeline entered the waters [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[3485,7844,21273,21872,628,1908,694,16963,818,23192,857],"class_list":["post-40877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-geopolitics","tag-black-sea","tag-donald-trump","tag-gold-goats-and-guns","tag-nordstream-2","tag-pipeline","tag-recep-tayyip-erdogan","tag-russia","tag-tom-luongo","tag-turkey","tag-turkstream","tag-vladimir-putin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40877"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40878,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40877\/revisions\/40878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}