An extraordinary exposé by Greg Palast tonight on the subject of BP and, among other locations, the oil company's interests in Azerbaijan and the Caspian Sea area in Dispatches: In Deep Water for Channel 4. The Caspian region holds one of the biggest oil reserves in the world.
Two interviewees state that MI6 was involved in Azerbaijan. There's an interesting photo taken of Tony Blair and BP's Lord Browne and Caspian basin representatives taken in 1998. Blair allies such as George Robertson of NATO and Anji Hunter did well in this milieu.
The US was signing contracts for pipelines from the Caspian Basin to Europe, including one to Skopje in Macedonia, just 20 km from Kosovo. Stability and control of the Balkans would be crucial to the oil industry's bonanza.
In 1999, Britain and the NATO allies attacked Serbia, ostensibly in defence of Kosovo.
Elsewhere:
The objectives of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, according to US officials, is to reduce dependence on OPEC oil producers in the Middle East, create a secure supply of oil to Israel, and begin to end dependence on Russian and Iranian oil transportation networks from the Caspian region. ... Controlling pipeline routes from the Caspian Sea has been identified by strategists as a key post Cold War objective.
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