Türkiye Seeks to Use Syria’s Realignment For Eurasian Energy Leverage
Sertaç Canalp Korkmaz
Executive Summary:
The energy environment in Eurasia has transitioned to a security issue, and discussions of the Four Seas concept have returned. The plan allows Türkiye to leverage itself as the central overland energy transit hub connecting the Persian Gulf, Caspian, Mediterranean, and Black seas via Syria.
A post-Assad Eurasian realignment is downsizing Russia’s footprint in Syria, severing Iran’s land corridor to the Mediterranean, and allowing Türkiye to consolidate the vacuum of energy transit to Europe.
Ankara has already turned part of the vision into operational fact through the Kilis–Aleppo pipeline. If it scales depends on whether Russia maintains its presence in Syria and how long a U.S. footprint in the project persists.
The energy environment in Eurasia has become a security issue as conflicts in the region continue. This has led to discussions about alternative routes, and some countries, such as Türkiye, seek to position themselves as the natural alternatives. Some countries, such as Russia, are having to reconsider their presence in the region, especially in Syria, as alignments evolve.
In the discussions about alternative transit routes, the Four Seas concept has returned to the conversation. The plan aims to link the Persian Gulf, Caspian Sea, Mediterranean Sea, and Black Sea through Syrian and Turkish territory. Speaking at the U.S.–Syria Energy Symposium in Washington on March 26, U.S. Special Envoy to Türkiye Thomas Barrack argued that the energy industry’s priority has shifted from distribution to security (Türkiye Today, March 27). Alongside that framing, he revived the long-dormant Four Seas concept (Enab Baladi, March 27). Barrack pitched it as a land-based alternative to vulnerable maritime chokepoints amid the conflict with Iran (Levant 24, March 29). More recently, the initiative has been pushed in Washington as a means to prioritize a Syria–Türkiye transit corridor amid rising energy security concerns in the region (Eurasianet, June 15). In early June, the New Lines Institute pressed for a founding Four Seas Ministerial Forum in Istanbul and an infrastructure consortium as a legal entity (New Lines Institute, June 8). For Ankara, the concept is a homecoming. Türkiye first floated the Four Seas Project in 2009, before the 2011 civil war buried it (Enab Baladi, March 27).
Currently, there is no chartered Four Seas body, no signed framework, no financing architecture. The only operational aspect is the Kilis–Aleppo pipeline. The revival is therefore best read as a symptom of a wider Eurasian realignment, not its cause. The fall of the Assad regime in Syria in December 2024 set that realignment in motion. The two powers that anchored the old order, Russia and Iran, are being pushed out of the Levant, and Türkiye is moving into the space they leave behind.
The restored Kilis–Aleppo pipeline entered service on August 2, 2025 (Qatar Fund for Development, August 2, 2025). Its daily capacity reaches up to six million cubic meters, under a four-way arrangement among Türkiye, Azerbaijan, Syria, and Qatar. The gas is Azerbaijani, sourced from offshore Caspian fields and transported by the State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) through Turkish territory to Aleppo’s thermal plant (Caliber.az, August 2, 2025). SOCAR is the keystone supplier of the Southern Gas Corridor. The Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline and Trans Adriatic Pipeline carry Caspian gas to Europe while bypassing both Russia and Iran (Caspian Post, January 23). In 2025, the same supplier quietly folded Syria into its portfolio. The European Commission now lists Syria among the fourteen states SOCAR supplied that year (European Commission, accessed July 7). SOCAR, TotalEnergies, and ADNOC’s investment arm signed a long-term Caspian gas deal for Europe on June 1 (Report.Az, June 1). The deal reinforces the network that now feeds Aleppo. Syria, however, still cannot pay its own public-sector salaries and faces a reconstruction bill in the hundreds of billions (Al Majalla, January 7, 2025; Enab Baladi, January 9).
Kilis–Aleppo extends an Azerbaijani-anchored, Russia- and Iran-bypassing energy architecture from the Caspian into the Levant. The Kilis–Aleppo line ties Syrian electricity to Azerbaijani supply, Turkish transit, and Qatari finance. Türkiye thus sits as the gatekeeper where Caspian supply, Gulf transit, and Mediterranean offtake meet.
The corridor’s near-term value lies in transit rather than Syrian barrels. Pre-war crude production ran at around 380,000 barrels per day. By early 2026, it was reported to be at roughly 110,000 barrels per day (Türkiye Today, March 27). Damascus had by then regained fields holding close to 70 percent of national reserves. Ankara’s value proposition is therefore geographic, not extractive. In mid-April, Iraqi oil moved by road through Syria’s revived Baniyas terminal, an early proof of concept (Arab News, June 19). Syrian authorities now project output rising to 200,000 barrels per day by the end of 2026 (Radio Free Syria, June 9). It warned that pipelines have repeatedly turned Syrian territory into a sabotage target, and that the principal markets for Gulf hydrocarbons lie east, not west (Radio Free Syria, March 27).
Proposed extensions are bolder. They include reviving the Kirkuk–Baniyas oil pipeline, estimated at around $4.5 billion, and a Qatar–Türkiye gas line through Jordan and Syria (The New Arab, December 18, 2025; Al Majalla, April 16). Western majors are circling the upstream. Chevron signed an initial offshore exploration agreement with Syria and Qatar’s UCC Holding company in February (Egypt Oil & Gas, May 12). ConocoPhillips concluded a November 2025 gas memorandum projected to add four to five million cubic meters per day (Arab News, June 11).
The corridor advances on the ground from which Russia is retreating. In February, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov acknowledged that Moscow’s presence had contracted to two principal sites, the Khmeimim air base and the Tartus naval facility in Syria, after a pullout from more than 100 other positions (Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, February 18; The New Arab, June 11). Tartus is Russia’s only permanent repair and logistics hub in the Mediterranean. Khmeimim is its principal link to operations across Africa (Middle East Online, June 10). On June 10, the Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed it was negotiating to reformat its bases in Syria, with Spokesperson Maria Zakharova describing cooperation with Damascus as actively developing (Radio Free Syria; The Moscow Times, June 10). The language signals a shift from imperial tenancy to conditional access. Al-Sharaa has continued to press for Assad’s extradition from Russia, a standoff that keeps the bases’ fate unresolved.
The terms have inverted. Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa is seeking to repurpose the Assad-era bases into training centers for Syria’s own army (Levant 24, April 1). Russian President Vladimir Putin, in turn, has courted him across successive Kremlin meetings to secure their future (President of Russia, March 20, October 15, 2025, January 17). Moscow has signaled it will fight to stay. A cargo vessel resupplied Khmeimim via Tartus in May, the first documented resupply since the transition (The Syrian Observer, June 11). The shift is real, yet it should not be overstated. Al-Sharaa pledged in October 2025 to honor existing agreements (Al-Jazeera, October 15, 2025). Some analysts read Moscow’s reduced footprint as a manageable adjustment rather than a strategic loss (The New Arab, June 19). The eastern Mediterranean’s security architecture is being rewritten, but not yet without Russia in the room.
For Ankara, the Four Seas revival is less an energy project than a bid to convert its gains in Syria into durable Eurasian primacy, at the expense of Russia and Iran. Ankara’s leverage in these developments is anchored in hard commitments. A military cooperation accord signed on August 13, 2025, commits Türkiye to supplying weapons and logistics to the Syrian army (X/@Sy_Defense, August 13, 2025). It also commits Ankara to training the Syrian army under a memorandum on military training and consultancy (Daily Sabah, August 13, 2025).
Türkiye’s contest is not only with Moscow and Tehran. A westward corridor anchored in Türkiye also bears on whether Gulf hydrocarbons flow to Europe or are drawn east toward the People’s Republic of China. It connects to the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor, which has been promoted as an alternative to Beijing’s One Belt and One Road initiative (Trends Research, February 15). The pipelines can be financed and the contracts signed. Türkiye cannot, however, purchase the speed and stability of Syrian state consolidation. Whether Damascus can deliver it, and whether Moscow allows it, is now the central question at the intersection of eastern Mediterranean energy and the Caspian.
This article was originally published in Eurasia Daily Monitor.