ISTANBUL - Richard Perle, representative of American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, indicated on Friday that ''people in the world thought that the United States launched its military operations to reach oil reserves, but the U.S. economy, in fact, had the power to meet price increases in case of an energy shortage''.
Speaking at the Eighth International Security Conference organized by the Ari Movement in association with the Marshall Fund, the NATO Public Diplomacy Division and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, Perle said that the world's daily oil production was 87 million barrels while the consumption was 85 million barrels. He said that shock waves could easily spread in the world in case of an oil shortage.
Expressing his concerns about recent developments in Russian energy sector, Perle said that it seemed to him that President Vladimir Putin was trying to centralize everything.
He noted that a single country possessed an important part of energy used in Europe, and it gave rise to concerns in European continent.
''People in the world thought that the United States launched its military operations to reach oil reserves, but the U.S. economy had the power to meet price increases in case of an energy shortage'', he said.
Perle stressed that the United States was exerting efforts to make world oil market an open one, since poor countries would be affected most from a likely crisis. -RUSSIAN POINT OF VIEW-
Meanwhile, Victor Nadein-Raevsky, a representative of Russian Academy for World Economy & International Relations, said that they were moving towards to northern parts of the country to find new reserves.
''We can take advantage of only 40-50 percent of our oil reserves since petroleum and natural gas companies in Russia are not experienced enough. Recent surveys revealed that we need an investment of 180 billion USD to exploit duly all of our reserves,'' he said.
In response to Perle's criticisms, Raevsky affirmed that they decided to nationalize energy resources just to prevent corruption.
On the other hand Mithat Rende, Director of Water & Environmental Affairs (Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs Energy) said, ''we attach great importance to safety of pipelines. Also, an important portion of world oil is transiting through Turkish straits. Therefore, safety of straits is of vital importance. For instance, number of oil tankers passing through the Istanbul and Dardanelles Straits exceeded 10 thousand in 2005. It is a real cause of concern for us.''