In recent weeks Turkey has redoubled efforts to position itself as a gatekeeper of oil and natural gas flowing to Europe from points eastward. On June 5 Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz announced that Turkey would attempt renegotiate its natural gas import contract with Russia to allow for the re-export of unused Russian gas to Southeastern Europe (here). And on June 2 Yildiz renewed talks with Azeri energy officials on a host of issues from the price Turkey pays for Azeri gas to the Nabucco project (here).

In Northern Iraq, Turkey recently inked a long-awaited deal to export oil from the Kurdish controlled Taq Taq and Tawke fields (here). While this deal is significant in and of itself, it also indicates that the Kurds have made progress in resolving the dispute with the Iraqi central government about the export of the Kurdish region's natural resources. From the Turkish perspective, this development could mean an alternative source of natural gas for phase 1 of Nabucco (here). Keep an eye on negotiations between Erbil and Baghdad in the coming months.

These developments came shortly after Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkish academic and author of the ruling AK Party's foreign policy, replaced Ali Babacan as minister of foreign affairs. During Babacan's tenure at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he  struggled to implement Davutoglu prescription for enhancing Turkey's strategic position both regionally and globally. (For those of you unfamiliar with Davutoglu's concept of "strategic depth," check out Nicholas Danforth's excellent survey of pragmatism in Turkish foreign policy here.)

Correlation does not prove causation and all that business, but it seems clear that Turkey's renewed focus on  (and success in) energy diplomacy over the previous month  has Davutoglu's fingerprints all over it