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Russia was the world's largest gas exporter until February 24, when Moscow invadedUkraine, shaking global energy markets and forcing Europe to end its dependence on Russian fossil fuels.

Europe imposed sanctions on Russia, which Turkey has refused to apply. Since the war began, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sought to play a mediatingrole in the conflict, supplying weapons to Kyiv while maintaining close relations with President Vladimir Putin.

In response,Putin proposed in October to make Turkey a hub for Russian gas deliveriesas an alternative supply route to Europea plan backed by Erdogan. But what Putin has in mindis not clear, so far.

Both presidents are going through difficult times. After 20 years in power, Erdogan faces the toughest challenge of his political life in the upcoming elections on May 14.

Erdogan's re-election bidwas already proving to be arduous amidrecord-high inflation and an economic slowdown. Adevastating earthquake that hit Turkey in February, killing almost 50,000 people, has only made it harder for the Turkish leader.The quake caused damage worth more than $103billion (96.11 billion), or approximately 9% of the country's expected national income this year.

Putin has his own set of challenges at hand, including the war in Ukraine and tough economic sanctions hitting the Russian economy.

"Putin is dangling for Turkey the'carrot' of becoming a gas hub to bring Turkey closer to Moscow's orbit similarly to whatPutin had tried to do with Germany and Nord Stream," said energy expert Agnia Grigas, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a US think tank.

"Putin has traditionally used personal relationships, natural gas dealsand arguably corruption to establish closer diplomatic relations with European and Eurasian countries, so Turkey is no exception," she told DW.

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Despite promising rhetoric by the leaders of both countries, there are technical concerns about the plan for Turkey to become a Russian gas hub.

"The idea behind Putin's statements seems to send more Russian pipeline gas to Turkey, and that gas could then be re-exported to Europe," Anne-Sophie Corbeau, a global research scholar at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy, told DW.

"The issue is that there is not enough pipeline capacity to do that," she added.

Two active natural gas pipeline systems carry gas from Russia to Turkey. The biggest of these,TurkStreamis designed to carry 31.5 billion cubic meters (bcm) per year and supplies gas to both Europe and Turkey via two pipelines.

The second pipeline system, BlueStream, has an annual capacity of 16 bcm and covers Turkey's domestic gas demand.

Both systems are currently heavily congested and adding one or more pipelines will take years, energy analysts say.

Russian gas is currently exempt from sanctions because so many European nations are reliant on it. However, EU states have been desperately seeking to reduce this dependency. So if Turkey becomes an energy hub that includes Russian gas, Western leaders are concerned Europe could end up importing the very Russian gas it is trying to move away from.

Considering Erdogan's well-known long-standing goal of making Turkey one of the world's leading energy trading centers, could Turkey and Russia pull this off?

"Despite the TurkStreampipeline project, Turkey does not have the potential to become a gas hub for Europe as the EU countries and Russia's near abroad countries areseeking diversification away from Russian energy sources," said energy expert Grigas.

"Likewise, most EUcountries are prioritizing alternative supplies of gas such as from the Caspian, Norway, North Africa and furtherafield such as the United States and Qatar via LNG," she said, referring to liquefied natural gas.

With oil and gas scarce, Turkey relies heavily on gas imports from Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran, as well as LNG imports from the United States, Egypt, Qatar, Nigeria and Algeria.

LNG imports have reached 14.1 bcm, accounting for 24%of total imports, according to data from the Turkish Ministry of Energy. Turkey has doubled its LNG imports since 2013, data shows.

In order for Turkey to become a gas hub and supply Europe "the only possibility that I could see is that Turkey imports more Russian pipeline gas [once the pipeline capacity has been built]. Therefore it needs less LNG and this LNG is then free to supply other European markets," Corbeau said.

"I don't think Europe wants to be more dependent on Russian gas coming through another place," she noted.

Turkey's strategic position in the Black Sea, its control over theBosphorus,and itsstatus as a NATO member makeit a valuable partner for Moscow in the current geopolitical situation. But Putin's idea of turning Turkey into a Russian gas hub could make Ankara more dependent on Moscow, analysts warn.

"You have to remember that the relationship between Erdogan andPutin has not always been great if you recall what happened in 2015," said Corbeau, referring to the downing of a Russian fighter jet by Turkish forces in Syria.

Even though the relationship was officially restored in 2016, the two countries have remainedon opposite sides in recent conflicts such as Libya and Syria.

Corbeau thinksErdogan is playing an "interesting game between Ukraine and Russia," wonderingif anyone would "betthat the relationship between Russia and Turkey in particular their presidentswould be good for a long time."

"It's not really down to the relationship between two countries but the relationship between two presidents. At the end of the day it's all about Mr. Putin and Mr. Erdogan," she added.

There is one more piece of the puzzle. Turkey will go to the ballot box on May 14, which could be a game changer, said Grigas and could spell the end to the "cozy personal relationship between Putin and Erdogan," resultingin changes toTurkey's energy and foreign policy.

Turkey had planned to hold a natural gas summit in Istanbul this year, bringingtogether gas suppliersand Europe's consumer countries. The event, which was initially planned for Februaryand was postponed to March 22 due to the earthquake, has been pushed back indefinitely, according to local media reports.

The Kremlin said on Monday that work to create a gas hubin Turkey was "a complex project that would require time to come to fruition."

"It is clear that this is quite complicated work, it is a rather complex project which, unfortunately, cannot be implemented without time shifts, without technical or other problems," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

"Such situations are inevitable in relation to the Turkish hub. We will follow it, we will continue to work with our Turkish partners."

Edited by: Ashutosh Pandey

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Will Turkey ever become a Russian gas hub? - DW (English)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said he will ask parliament to ratify Finland's NATO membership, while putting Sweden's bid on hold for the time being.

Erdogan made the announcement in Ankara on Friday, accompanied by Finnish President Sauli Niinisto.

The Turkish president said Finland has taken "concrete steps" to address his calls to crack down on Kurdish separatist militants, who Ankara regards as "terrorists."

Erdogan has suggested that Sweden has not done enough, and that he will continue watching what actions it takes.

Finland and Sweden both applied for NATO membership in May last year, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Finland shares a border with Russia.

Accession to the trans-Atlantic alliance requires approval by all 30 member states.

Finland now appears assured of gaining membership. The only other hold-out, Hungary, has said its parliament will vote on ratification on March 27.

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Erdogan: Turkey will ratify Finland's NATO membership ahead of ... - NHK WORLD

KAHRAMANMARAS, Turkey, March 8 (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan could have relied on strong voter backing from Cigdemtepe and other villages and towns across southeast Turkey in the past, but a huge earthquake and a slow rescue response has made once loyal support more uncertain.

There are signs his AK Party (AKP) is increasingly aware that it cannot take past votes for granted, as officials talk of accelerating rebuilding plans before elections in May, which may prove the toughest of Erdogan's more than two decades in power.

"This whole village has voted AKP even though no one knows why," said a truck driver in Cigdemtepe, which is perched above cotton and garlic fields in Kahramanmaras province, a region where whole urban centres were destroyed.

"The earthquake definitely changes our opinion because the first responders and tents were very late to arrive," he said.

How big a challenge Erdogan faces is difficult to determine, given the lack of polling in the region. In addition, the opposition has dithered before finally agreeing on a candidate to challenge Erdogan, unsettling voters, while experts say those affected by the quake could swiftly change their minds.

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But Reuters interviews with nearly 30 residents in the past week in Kahramanmaras, Adiyaman and Gaziantep - provinces where white tents dot the landscape of buckling or collapsed buildings - suggest political loyalties, even among once diehard Erdogan backers, are shifting.

"My mind is completely changed," said a student in rural Kahramanmaras, who like others was reluctant to give their name. "We breathe AKP here but this earthquake changed everything for us. These people don't know what they are doing."

The deadliest disaster in Turkey's modern history devastated cities and towns and killed tens of thousands of people a month ago, mostly in a conservative stronghold that has heavily backed Erdogan and the AKP for two decades.

While only a tiny sample of the 14 million people affected by the earthquakes in southeastern Turkey, the opinions of those interviewed shed light on how these mostly rural and working class voters could affect presidential and parliamentary polls.

Many resented years of permissive AKP construction policies that allowed up to eight-storey concrete apartments to be built - thousands of which were destroyed in the tremors.

Some were irked by what they saw as insensitive statements by political leaders including Erdogan, who asked for forgiveness last week for a response to the earthquake that could have been faster, while some others ridiculed the government's plan to rebuild the region in just a year.

But people also struggled to imagine voting for opposition parties and their newly-named candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

The AKP has ruled Turkey with little serious electoral challenge since 2002, and party insiders told Reuters they are aware of the anger among their voter base in the southeast but confident a combination of swift rebuilding and a confused opposition will deliver victory.

One party official said they would "re-direct" residents' focus to efforts to rebuild and stress no one but Erdogan could do this quickly. Another said they would showcase reconstruction in an area where 227,000 buildings collapsed or face demolition.

Pollsters have mostly avoided surveying those in the disaster zone, while national surveys found the AKP has maintained its support. They point to a tight election contest despite a cost-of-living crisis that had gripped Turks long before the magnitude 7.8 quake and aftershocks brought more criticism of the government.

The centrist opposition bloc finally on Monday named former civil servant Kilicdaroglu, leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP) since 2010, as its candidate.

The region voted 65% or more for the AKP and its nationalist ally the MHP in the last election in 2018. Many residents told Reuters that opposition parties were late to name a candidate and that they would only support one with nationalist roots, such as Ankara mayor Mansur Yavas - who is slated to be one of Kilicdaroglu's vice presidents should he win.

One construction materials trader in Adiyaman, a city of 650,000 whose downtown is a wasteland of crumbled concrete, laughed at the idea of Kilicdaroglu as president.

Umur, a young accountant in the city, said he intended to cast his first-ever ballot for the opposition but only if the candidate was "a low-profile and effective person like Yavas".

Officials briefly floated the idea of delaying elections - before backtracking and pressing ahead with a date of May 14, a decision some find hard to comprehend.

"It is not wise to hold elections in May. People hurt, we still hurt," said Mahmut, an insurance worker in the town of Besni, where after the quake he said he could hear his cousins under the rubble for two days before their voices stopped.

Erdogan's request for forgiveness had been poorly received, he said, adding he normally votes for the MHP.

"There are many who want to vote for the opposition...and I could too, but I wouldn't vote for Kilicdaroglu because he has not won a single election," he said.

Mehmet, 52, a construction subcontractor living with his wife and child in a tent in Adiyaman, said "everyone" votes for Erdogan as president and he would too, but he would punish the AKP party by voting for the MHP.

Mehmet Ali Kulat, chairman of MAK polling company, said based on previous earthquakes survivors tend to blame the government at first, then later back whomever rebuilds homes.

There are only about 55 buildings in Igdeli, where villagers erected their own tents and intend to rebuild themselves.

"The government of the past 20 years is not working for the people," said 70-year old farmer Mehmet. "I don't believe the opposition is up to the task either. But we need fundamental change."

Additional reporting by Orhan Coskun in Ankara; Writing by Jonathan Spicer, Editing by Alexandra Hudson

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Turkish earthquake survivors reconsider election loyalty to Erdogan ...

1. "Need A Just Peace" In Ukraine: Turkey's Erdogan On Call With Putin  NDTV
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3. Ukraine war at year 1: Turkey's balancing act succeeds, but game far from over  Al-Monitor

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"Need A Just Peace" In Ukraine: Turkey's Erdogan On Call With Putin - NDTV

When Ali Nusret Berker started seeing Twitter videos posted by people trapped under the rubble of the two Feb. 6 earthquakes in southern Turkey, they brought to mind the cousin he had lost when a massive earthquake hit his hometown near Istanbul in 1999. An avid cave explorer who just passed an exam to become an ambulance driver, the 33-year-old decided to go straight to the Yalova headquarters of AFAD, Turkeys Disaster and Emergency Management Authority, where he was a search-and-rescue volunteer.

I couldnt sit in my warm home when they were screaming for help, he tells TIME.

But sit at home is exactly what AFAD told Berker to do. He had to come back the next day to badger officials to send him and other volunteers south on an overnight bus ride to Iskenderun. There, AFAD employees tried to keep Berker and his ad hoc team from going to the hard-hit city of Samandag, he says. But the team caught a lift with a local man and eventually pulled five people out alive with a jackhammer, generator, and bolt cutter, which also had to be provided by residents. At least 800 people have died in the city.

If we had equipment and if we reached Samandag quicker, we could have easily saved more, Berker says. There were so many voices that we couldnt count. But after hours and hours the voices were going mute.

As Turkey begins to reckon with a death toll nearing 36,000, competing narratives are being told about the countrys deadliest earthquake ever. Although President Recep Tayyip Erdoan has admitted shortcomings, he claimed that its not possible to be ready for a disaster like this and called those criticizing the government response dishonorable. State prosecutors have opened investigations against journalists and social media users who disagreed with his handling of the crisis.

A resident stands in front of his destroyed home in Samandag, south of Hatay on Feb. 16, 2023, ten days after a 7.8-magnitude struck the border region of Turkey and Syria.

Yasin AkgulAFP/Getty Images

Opposition politicians and other critics have argued that while the twin tremors were unprecedented, the sheer scale of death and destruction points to key missteps. The Turkish government has been supposedly preparing for the next major earthquake ever since it was caught off-guard in the 1999 quake that killed more than 17,000 people, sparking major public anger that helped bring Erdoan and his conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP) into office for the first time in 2003. Yet accounts like Berkers depict a state disaster response that was slow, inflexible, and incompetentand many say the centralization of power by Turkeys longest-serving and increasingly autocratic leader is to blame.

Which of these two narratives Turkish voters choose to believe could determine Erdoans fate when he stands for re-election in a vote currently planned for May.

He hollowed out important institutions, he weakened them, he appointed loyalists who do not have the credentials in key positions and he wiped out civil society organizations, says Gnl Tol, Turkey program director at the Middle East Institute, whose father-in-law in Hatay passed away after waiting more than 24 hours for a crane to lift a concrete slab off his legs. Its one-man rule, and he wants us to not talk about it. He wants us to die without complaining.

The best way to prevent earthquake deaths is to construct resistant buildings. But amid a construction boom that enriched firms close to the ruling AKP, the government failed to enforce its own building codes and sold zoning amnesties to owners of existing substandard properties.

In part for these reasons, more than 61,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed last week, including several hospitals. More than 130 contractors are being investigated for collapses, even though inspectors and other experts say officials should probably be implicated as well.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks to media after visiting the tent city in quake hit Adiyaman, Turkey on Feb. 10, 2023.

Murat KulaAnadolu Agency/Getty Images

Once buildings collapse, lives depend on how quickly rescuers and machinery can arrive. The survival rate is 75% in the first 24 hours, but drops precipitously after that.

Following the 1999 earthquake, a hodgepodge of NGOs, including the Turkish Red Crescent and the mountain search and rescue group AKUT, responded in tandem with the armed forces. In the two decades since, many of those groups have been sidelined or brought under Erdoans influence, and tens of thousands of military and civilian officials were purged after a 2016 coup attempt. For the latest earthquakes, all rescue efforts and humanitarian aid had to be approved by AFAD, a microcosm of the rigid top-down decision-making the President has implemented throughout the country. (AFAD declined to comment for this story.)

AFAD was established under the Prime Ministers office in 2009 to coordinate post-disaster response among different organizations, echoing FEMA in name and mission. (Erdoan was Prime Minister at the time, Turkeys most important job, before the country switched to a presidential system in 2018 after he reached the end of his three-term limit.) But it was also a 100% AKP operation and part of a network of faith-based aid organizations designed to boost support for Erdoan at home and abroad, according to Hetav Rojan, a Copenhagen-based security advisor for Danish authorities and expert on the region.

Along with the Turkish Red Crescent, which is now also controlled by an Erdoan ally, AFAD has become an instrument of the Presidents foreign policy goal to be the most generous nation in the world (as stated on their website), administering humanitarian aid programs in more than 50 countries.

Theyve used it to show Turkey is helping its Islamic brothers and sisters in its sphere of influence, Rojan says.

AFADs top brass, mostly AKP cronies, have been criticized for lack of experience. In January, Erdoan named theologian smail Palakolu, who previously managed Turkeys Directorate of Religious Affairs, or Diyanet, as head of AFADs disaster response department.

Emergency personnel conduct a rescue operation to save 16-year-old Melda from the rubble of a collapsed building in Hatay, southern Turkey, on Feb. 9, 2023, where she has been trapped since a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck the country's south-east.

Bulent KilicAFP/Getty Images

AFADs results have been lackluster, even by its own admission. A report after the November 2022 earthquake in the northwestern province of Dzce that injured 93 people found that adequate coordination could not be achieved due to a litany of problems, including a shortage of staff. Local teachers and imams had to be recruited to conduct damage assessments in place of engineers.

AFAD nonetheless had total control of the response on Feb. 6, with environmental minister Murat Kurum warning that we will not allow any coordination other than AFAD coordination. After the NGO Ahbap, which is led by Turkish rock star Haluk Levent, collected billions of liras from donors including Madonna for its relief work in the earthquake zone, interior minister Sleyman Soylu threatened to do what is necessary to those exploiting donations and trying to compete with the state.

The strict centralization often caused delays. One nurse told Reuters she wanted to deploy immediately, but only arrived 40 hours later because she had to wait for orders from AFAD.

If people are afraid to take initiative, nothing is going to happen, or certainly not happen on time, says Soli zel, a lecturer at Istanbuls Kadir Has University.

Read More: How Turkey Can Rebuild Better After the Earthquake

AKUTs popular and outspoken co-founder Nasuh Mahruki, who had to resign as its head in 2016 after he was charged with insulting Erdoan, says the search and rescue group wasnt able to save all the people we could have saved because of [AFADs] coordination problems. Hes been calling for the military, which at roughly half a million strong dwarfs AFADs 6,000 personnel, to again take the lead on disasters.

If youre talking about a disaster you have to use the greatest and strongest muscle first, which is the army, Mahruki says.

Although defense minister Hulusi Akar said the day after the earthquakes that 7,500 troops had been deployed, veterans have said the army response in 1999 was bigger and faster. Erdoan has rolled back much of the militarys considerable independence over the years, particularly after the failed coup attempt in 2016.

A view of 12 Subat Stadium after tents set up by the Turkish Disaster Management Agency (AFAD) for earthquake victims, in the city center of Kahramanmaras on Feb. 15, 2023.

Mehmet KamanAnadolu Agency/Getty Images

In the days after the earthquakes, many people had to dig themselves out of the rubble, according to residents of Iskenderun. The morning after the earthquake, on Feb. 7, an AFAD truck was parked in a neighborhood of aging apartment buildings that had collapsed in a domino effect, as one man described to TIME. A few soldiers stood ready to help. But the people extricating the bodies and carrying them out on bedsheets were local men in work gloves. When volunteer rescuers from AKUT and the Besikatas Search and Rescue Association arrived later that day, they relied on excavators and cranes brought by residents. AFAD didnt reach the provincial capital of Hatay until the next day.

Im also very angry with the government because were all alone here, just civilians, says Saime zkan, whose parents were buried in the rubble. Even if victims didnt die immediately, theyre dead now because of how theyre handling it.

Once again, Erdoans political future hinges to a large degree on public anger over an earthquake response. Hes promised to rebuild within a year, and if he attempts to postpone the May elections by several monthsthrough an electoral council ruling or constitutional amendmenthe might have time to win voters back with lavish spending. But Kemal Kldarolu, leader of the social democratic Republican Peoples Party that was last in power in the 1990s, has said any delay would be tantamount to a coup against democracy.

The basis of this mess is the one-man system, says Meral Akener, another prospective presidential candidate from the right-leaning Good Party.

When Berker, the volunteer rescuer, returned to Yalova, he told local AFAD officials that these deaths are on you, too. At home, he cannot hug his infant son enough, he says.

The newborn babies of many people who were under the rubble lost their lives. Now every one of them is my child, too, he says. I want everyone who was negligent in the loss of their lives to be questioned and held accountable.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogans portrait in front of damaged building in Hatay, Turkey, on Feb. 13, 2023.

Aziz KarimovGetty Images

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How Erdoans Grip on Power Made Turkey's Earthquakes Worse