Meanwhile, Russia is keeping a very low profile, not joining the US and Europe in the criticism of Turkish government’s steps in aftermath of the failed coup attempt and is silently considering how the situation can turn to its advantage.
“Russia does normally profit from the isolation of third countries in the Middle East, offering them transactional partnerships when they find themselves at odds with the West,” Giuli said.
The expert believes that the forthcoming meeting between Russian and Turkish presidents Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which was agreed by them in a phone talk, should be read in this light.
“As such, we might hear again about Turkish Stream – perhaps on a lower scale. However, when the patterns of amity and enmity are this unstable – as the recent Russia-Turkey relationship demonstrated – large, expensive, and long-term projects such as Turkish Stream are normally not in an ideal political environment,” Giuli said.
He also noted that Russia’s external energy priority is now the expansion of Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project, whilst a revival of Russian-Turkey friendship does not automatically mean that Turkey intends to increase even more its gas import dependency on Russia.
“In any case, it is more likely that the current rapprochement will restart energy cooperation (i.e. in the Akkuyu nuclear power plant in Turkey) and normalize trade relations,” the expert said.
The Turkish Stream project was suspended due to sharp deterioration of relations between Moscow and Ankara after the incident involving the downing of the Russian air bomber in November 2015.
After normalization of the bilateral relations in June, Russian Gazprom spokesman, Sergey Kupriyanov, said that Gazprom is "open for a dialogue" on the Turkish Stream project.
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