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PKK, Pipeline Attacks and Iraq Oil
31.7.2012
By Denise Natali
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Al Monitor |
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An Iraqi oil refinery engineer walks along the
Iraqi-Turkish pipeline in Kirkuk. Photo: Reuters •
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The Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline
Denise Natali is the Minerva Fellow at the Institute
for National Strategic Studies INSS, National Defense
University and the author of The Kurdish
Quasi-State: Development and Dependency in Post Gulf
War Iraq.
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Read more by the Author
July
31, 2012
The recent PKK bombing of the Iraqi-Turkish pipeline
reveals the growing implications of Ankara’s
unresolved Kurdish problem on its energy ambitions.
Not only did the explosion interrupt Iraqi oil
transfers, but it affirmed the degree to which the
PKK is willing to undermine Turkey’s strategic
assets, which are integrally tied to its energy
infrastructure. Although the pipeline, which
currently transports about 400,000 barrels of Iraqi
oil to Turkey’s Cehan port daily, was eventually
repaired, it has become a key target for the PKK, as
well as other lines running though southeastern
Turkey. These attacks are likely to continue as the
PKK takes advantage of the political vacuum in Syria
and as its relations with the Turkish state
deteriorate. An unstable southeastern Turkey will
further undermine the possibility of developing
Iraq’s northern corridor as a much-needed
alternative oil export route to Europe.
To be sure, attacks on the Iraqi-Turkish pipeline
have been ongoing for decades. Only four months
after the line was completed in April 1984, the PKK
sabotaged it. The pipeline also has been sabotaged
on the Iraqi side by local insurgents since 2003,
causing additional stoppages, exacerbating existing
damage, and temporarily lowering output from its
1990 levels of 1,100,000 bpd to about 400,000 bpd.
Still, PKK attacks were generally limited, even at
the height of its insurgency during the 1990s, when
the radical group declared Turkey’s energy
infrastructure as a “legitimate target”. As late as
2006, PKK hardliner Murat Karayilan, based in Iraqi
Kurdistan's Qandil Mountains, affirmed that the PKK
would attack Turkish pipeline infrastructure only as
a last resort, while focusing on military forces,
civilians, and property.
PKK strategies started to change, however, in 2010,
after another failed cease-fire with Ankara and
Turkey's signing of a 15-year pipeline extension
with Baghdad. While continuing to affirm their aim
was to "harm Turkish interests and the Turkish
army," the PKK’s pipeline attacks started to become
more frequent in PKK stronghold areas such as Mardin,
a town along the Turkish-Syrian border and through
which the Iraq-Turkish pipeline passes. They also
occurred outside traditional PKK areas. In May 2012,
the PKK blew up part of the Baku-Tiblisi-Erzerum (BTE
or Shah Deniz) gas pipeline on the Turkish side,
halting 16% of Turkey’s daily gas intake for about a
week. The following month, the PKK attacked another
Turkish gas pipeline from Iran, shutting down
supplies for two weeks.
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.
Instability in southeast Turkey also targets Iraq’s
energy sector development. It could stifle Baghdad’s
plans to diversify its export routes and develop the
northern corridor, particularly since 80% of its oil
is exported through the Strait of Hormuz and
vulnerable to Iran. The Kurdistan Regional
Government (KRG) has even more to lose. It is
relying on building its own pipeline to Turkey’s
Ceyhan port that would bypass Baghdad and give it
the economic and political independence it seeks.
Yet, 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.
Indeed, the Turkish state and Botaş can continue to
address its PKK pipeline problems by making
short-term switches on energy supply markets,
increasing storage facilities and playing down each
attack, while increasing security measures. This
approach may assure some investor confidence and
short-term supplies, but it neglects the root of the
pipeline attacks — a deeply rooted Kurdish problem
that is expanding across borders. Until this problem
is even partially resolved, which will involve the
KRG as well as Ankara, then Turkey’s strategic
energy assets and those of its neighbors will be
faced with increased risk, damping the prospects for
building additional pipelines and realizing regional
energy potential.
Denise Natali holds the Minerva Chair at the
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS),
National Defense University and author of The
Kurdish-Quasi-State: Development and Dependency in
Post-Gulf War Iraq. The views expressed are her own
and do not reflect the official policy or position
of the National Defense University, the Department
of Defense, or the U.S. government.
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author or news agency,
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