An EU Diplomat in Ashgabat, Denis Daniilidis has continued an initiative handed down from Brussels to push to restart talks on the Trans-Caspian pipeline, which would transport natural gas from fields in Turkmenistan across to Azerbaijan and then Turkey. The project has been stalling for years due to political, ecological, and financial uncertainties. The volume of this project to the East European natural gas market is reported to be 10 – 30 billion cubic metres of gas per annum.

This is a new development in a series of longstanding negotiations in the region. Turkmenistan and Turkey have signed an agreement in the past six months called TANAP (Trans-Anatolian natural gas pipeline) that will take offshore gas from Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz II in the Caspian Sea and will require Turkmenistan to build its own undersea pipeline through an area whose territorial borders are still in contention.

However, the next meeting of the Caspian littoral states at some point this year has been predicted to “resolve” the territorial issue once and for all, and at last allow development of international projects such as the Trans-Caspian pipeline. Other areas of suspicion remain – not the least of which is Turkmenistan’s proved natural gas reserves that have not already been sold to China, as well as the lack of technology without a consortium of international oil and gas developers to construct the undersea pipeline.

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News Briefs:

• It is speculated that President Obama’s decision to leave some 10,000 US troops in Afghanistan through the end of the year is a concession that the war will endure beyond his presidency. The President still insists that all but 1,000 personnel will be brought home by early 2017 and the decision to slow down their withdrawal from Afghanistan. It is likely the meeting between him and Ghani resulted in this change of heart.

• Uzbek President Islam Karimov has “won” his re-election, predictably, by a landslide. Although there were three other candidates, there seems to have been little impact on the populace by the campaign, during which Karimov disappeared for roughly three weeks, and the largest news story was around the aging post-Soviet dictator’s health. The OSCE criticized the election by reporting that the other candidates are displaying Karimov as the best candidate.

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• President Vladimir Putin, during a press conference yesterday, described Russia as “besieged by hostile forces” and he vowed to hit back hard against both foreign and domestic enemies. The speech was typical nationalistic fair, belying little of real importance and likely just another measure to shore up support for the upcoming Duma elections, as well as planning for future 2016 and 2018 cycles.

• The Iranian nuclear deal is still under negotiations and will be decided by March 31 next week. The hope is that a “framework” deal will take effect for approval and then a comprehensive agreement would be completed by June 30. Thus far, nothing significant has been leaked for almost a week, but news will likely begin to trickle out some 72 hours before the deadline.