The geographical location of Turkey has in the last decade, begun to play an increasingly important role. Lying at the crossroads of transit routes running from Asia and the Middle East to Europe, Turkey attracts the attention of world powers. The twenty-first century has seen intensified competition for access to energy resources in different regions of the world, while EU energy relations with Russia - a major supplier of natural gas to European markets - have seen complications. Russia, not wanting to lose such a huge European market, began building new pipelines directly from themsupplier to the customer, bypassing transit countries such as Ukraine and Belarus ((or example, Nord Stream). However, the European Union, increasingly aware of just how much it depended on a single supplier, began to look for new natural gas transportation routes bypassing Russian territory and thereby reducing Russia's impact on EU energy policy. In this context, Turkey has become a local point of interest, because its territory connects pipelines from different regions of the world. Moreover, Turkey taking advantage of its geopolitically comfortable position also wants to be involved in energy policy as a transit state. Wishing to have an impact on the future distribution pipeline routes through its territory, Turkey has managed to somewhat thwart European and Russian plans for construction of the gas pipelines Nabucco and South Stream, by signing an agreement with Azerbaijan for construction of the Transanatolian pipeline (TANAP). Such a decision has forced Russia to speed up the construction of South Stream and the European Union to change Nabucco to Nabucco-West and significantly reduce the cost of building the pipeline. In addition Turkey counts on cooperation in the energy sector of Middle Eastern countries such as Iran, Iraq, and in the future Syria. Despite currently turbulent conditions in theMiddle East (the war in Syria, the conflict between Israel and Palestine), Turkey has not given up on plans for the construction and commissioning of new, economically viable pipelines running from the Middle East through Turkey to the European Union.