BY MURAT YETKIN
RADIKAL)- Supreme Allied Commander in Europe US Gen. James Jones was in Istanbul last weekend. His visit wasn’t made known to the press. Every time Gen. Jones visits Turkey, he becomes the center of attention. But this time his visit was kept a secret.
Jones made a speech to the Turkish staff college graduation ceremony in Istanbul and also met with top Turkish military officials. Then he left the country without paying a visit to Ankara. In his speech at the ceremony, Jones talked about NATO and Turkey’s future role in the alliance.
When a senior staff official asked where Jones sees NATO in the year 2020, he gave a brief but remarkable answer: ‘I think in 2020 NATO will still take an active part in safeguarding energy resources.’
Unlike the Turkish public, both he US and the European Union are focused on protecting energy resources and securing the paths of energy transmission. This is their priority. The EU supplies 50 percent of its energy from sources outside the Union. This ratio is expected to climb to 70-80 percent by 2020. Therefore, the Baku-Tiblisi-Ceyhan pipeline holds crucial importance for the EU. The pipeline will be the first to transport Caspian oil to world markets without the direct intervention of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and Russia.
The US once argued that the pipeline would best be under the protection of the West (that is, NATO). The assurance of this protection would be the Incirlik Airbase, since it’s located close to both the port of Ceyhan and ports in Mersin and Iskenderun. As US Envoy to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad pointed out long ago, the base has an operational range of 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers).
Right after the parliamentary elections of 2002, the US shifted its policy towards Turkey. Washington at first had great hopes for the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government. However, when these hopes came to nothing, they once again began to look to the Turkish military. In any case, things look different when viewed from the perspective of the year 2020.