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[JTW Interview] Interview with USAK Energy Expert Ozertem on USAK Conference on Critical Energy Infrastructure |
24 June 2011By Namig Abbasov, JTW
Namig Abbasov: Could you express the aim of organizing Critical Energy Security Conference?
Hasan Selim Özertem: USAK’s Critical Energy Security Conference was held on 20th of June and it was made by the participation of 130 guests. Moreover, we had more than 15 speakers. Why we had a conference on critical energy infrastructure? Actually, conferences on energy security are mainly focused on issues like demand and supply including pipeline policy. However, the sustainability and accessibility dimensions are not well examined during these organizations. We thought that especially making an emphasis on critical energy infrastructure would make a difference in public debate. As a result, we made a conference which is composed of four different panels. We started with the general description of energy security, passed to conceptional debate on critical energy infrastructure, then looked at the international experiences and lastly examined what is going on in Turkey.
Actually, looking at the description of critical energy infrastructure, you will see that it is mainly focusing on security dimension of pipeline or other infrastructural units of energy. What do we mean by security dimension? Actually, after building up pipeline infrastructures or energy infrastructures, there are some risks emerging as a result of these infrastructures’ passing long distances. What are these main threats? Actually, one of them is terrorism, the other one is illegal tapping. We may also talk about vandalism, cyber threats and also some violations. We are realized these kinds of risks because destruction of energy supply which causes especially economic risks brings up some security deficits and these are also causing big economic costs to nation state as well as negatively affecting human beings in terms of gain and loss account and their incomes. Because each neighboring destruction increases risk premium as a result of increase in oil and natural gas prices to sustain security. Considering these facts, we made a conference on critical energy infrastructure
Namig Abbasov: Do you expect that the conference will increase the importance of energy security in Turkey?
Hasan Selim Özertem: It is a good question. Actually, as we said, this was mainly the first public debate on critical energy infrastructure. In terms of increasing awareness, it will have positive contributions and expectations. And in this sense, it will also bring up another dimension into the debate. Actually critical energy infrastructure is seen as a part of national security issues. However, actually, without debating these issues with private sector representatives and experts, it causes some balance deficits, because if it is conducted by only state instruments, practices will have some problems that state instruments or state organs cannot see enough. In this sense, looking at participants’ characteristics or profile, we say that there were participants from private sector, legal sector, public level and civil society. Considering the civil society also, there were representatives of academia. All of these persons talked about different dimensions of energy security and critical energy security infrastructure.
What we see actually in Turkey is that there are some ways to go more to have a better or a global type of energy infrastructure security in the country which will also positively contribute to Turkey’s geostrategic position which has comparative advantages to become a transit country or hub country in terms of energy policies in the region. And one of the main issues here in the case of participants, some improvements are necessary in terms of legal applications; secondly in terms of practices which means reconsidering the operational or functional roles of security forces, and most important of all, there is a need to create conceptional framework critical energy infrastructure security in Turkey. What do I mean? Actually, you can get practices in the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, even in Japan we see there is a framework drawn these countries’ policy makers to define which infrastructure is critical and what kind of policies should be implemented to sustain the security of this infrastructure. In addition, some bureaucratic mechanisms were established in these countries. However, looking at Turkey, there are deficits or missing parts in terms of drawing this framework. There is a missing point in terms of an assistance body which will be directly responsible for critical energy infrastructure security. And thirdly, we may say that apart from critical energy infrastructure security, considering the global developments, also a global contextual framework should be drawn in terms of critical infrastructural security which includes banking sector, energy security sector, health, environment and other critical sectors for national security and interests of Turkey.
Namig Abbasov: In the conference you mentioned about the political and security dimensions of energy security. Could you tell us about those risks to the energy security of Turkey and how can Turkey solve these risks?
Hasan Selim Özertem: I divided the risks into two parts in terms of energy security. One of them is political dimensions and the other one is directly security dimensions. In terms of political dimensions, especially the role of private companies, the role of supplier companies, and the role of consumer countries are important. Why are they important? First of all, diplomatic tensions between suppliers and consumers may cause some problems in terms of stable energy supply or transmission consumer countries. Secondly, transit countries’ role is important. We saw this issue especially in tensions between Russia and Ukraine, the relations caused energy transmission disruption from Russia to Europe which caused economic crises as a result. Lastly, private sector’s relation with supplier countries is important, because it is related to legal and practical dimensions of exploitation of these resources and the relation between supplier country and private sector is also influential in terms of sustainable exploitation of these resources.
Coming to security perspective, as I mentioned before, regional security dynamics and global security dynamics are important. Especially after 9/11 attacks, we saw that there is a risk of international terrorism and considering the fact that there are potential terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda, they are not enemies of only certain countries. They are also posing a threat within global context. So their potential attacks to critical energy infrastructure will not only have an effect on national countries’ interests, but also will have wider impacts on third countries in terms of regional balances. So these issues should be considered in global context as well.
In addition to security dimension of energy security, as I mentioned before, there is risk of natural disasters that we saw after Fukushima case. Moreover, there are risks of violations, there are risks of vandalism, all of these are representing certain risks and all of these should be considered in global sphere or global context. Why do I say so? Because looking at energy security issues right now, the practical dimension in Turkey especially is on the shoulders of gendarme, and gendarme is representing military or hard power dimension of energy security. However, there is legal dimension, there are moreover intelligence agencies dimensions, there is a diplomatic dimension and there are other dimensions of critical infrastructure security. Considering all these facts, there should be a higher body with coordinating all these bodies’ responsibilities and harmonizing these practices for better implementation of these policies. And these issues were underlined in the conference and I believe this will also be accessed well enough by the governmental bodies. |
24 June 2011
Namig Abbasov, JTW
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