Valdai Club

The tensions with Iran, the impasse in Yemen, the threats to maritime traffic and oil facilities in the Gulf, and, most of all, the unchanged Qatari policies, its good PRs capabilities to offset the imposed isolation and the poor effectiveness of the sanctions adopted against Doha (apparently even counterproductive), may have finally prompted a reconsideration of the zero-sum game policies pursued so far.

Together with a revised military procurement, Saudi rulers’ reaction to the Russian proposal will help gauge if, and to which extent, they are ready to reconsider their historical alignment with the United States. Maybe Russia could also have better cards in bridging the Saudi-Iranian divide.

In the last weeks, the confrontation opposing US and Iran since Trump Administration’s decision to withdraw from the nuclear deal signed on 2015, has registered increasing tensions.

Russian gas giant, Gazprom, would be determined to deliver the amount of gas that currently is reaching Europe through Ukraine using alternatively routes, such as the North Stream 2 pipeline, that runs from Russia to Germany through the Baltic Sea (that will add a new annual capability of 55 billions  of cubic meters), and the Turkish Stream, that runs from Russia to the European portion of Turkish territory and from there to the heart of Europe through Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary.

Improving relations with GCC and avoiding that the regional crisis could affect this bilateral dialogue is Russia’s main priority.

Although the beginning of the twenty-first century has had its own good share of crisis in the Middle East, with the Iraq war, the conflicts in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen and, last but not least, the Arab Spring, and oil prices have been affected reaching $140 for barrel, OPEC’s role in determining the world energy market evolution has been less relevant compared to the previous century.

Most probably Turkey will continue to pragmatically play his cards on different tables in Washington, Moscow, Brussels and in the Middle East. So far, Ankara’s brilliant economic performance with a GDP growth of 11%, and President Erdogan’s high popularity in his own country and in the region, offer the necessary room of manoeuvre for this reckless policy. The point is to see for how long it will be tolerated in Washington.