The sun-parched west Anatolian plain is not the likeliest of settings for the realization of a 20-year-old plan for a gas pipeline linking the gas-rich countries of the Caspian with European markets.
But it was here that the presidents of Turkey and Azerbaijan formally commissioned the first delivery stage of the 1,850-kilometer (1,149-mile) Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) — in the process realizing the European Union's long-held dream of the Southern Gas Corridor.