ANKARA — Türkiye stopped its natural gas imports from Turkmenistan through Iran because of United States sanctions pressure, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar has revealed — the first time Ankara has publicly named Washington's sanctions machinery, rather than contract problems, as the reason a gas route it spent years building cannot run. “We stopped because of the OFAC, (US Office of Foreign Assets Control), somehow involved in this,” Bayraktar told journalists at a briefing on Thursday, in reporting by Middle East Eye. “Although we were not paying anything to Iran, the situation escalated between Iran and the US.”

Source: Middle East Eye via Hatha Alyoum English, Nov 6 2026 — Turkey halts Turkmenistan gas imports via Iran under US pressure, Ragip Soylu

The arrangement Bayraktar was describing is a swap: Turkmenistan delivers gas into northern Iran, and an equivalent volume flows onward to Türkiye through the existing Iran-Türkiye pipeline network. Türkiye began receiving Turkmen gas in March 2025 under an agreement envisaging annual supplies of 1.3 billion cubic metres through Iranian infrastructure, and its state importer BOTAŞ held an import licence for the arrangement until 2033. The flow itself stopped much earlier: Ashgabat cut deliveries in October 2025, saying at the time that the two countries had a short-term contract and that, without an agreement on volumes or prices, it could not sell gas to Ankara.

Source: AzerNews, Nov 6 2026 — Türkiye suspends Turkmen gas imports through Iran as US sanctions complicate energy plans (citing Middle East Eye)

A resumption that never happened

Earlier this year, Bayraktar said gas imports from Turkmenistan via Iran would resume — but those plans never materialised. His remarks this week reveal why, on Ankara's account: the real problem was the US-Iran war, which began in February, and the sanctions exposure that comes with any arrangement touching Iranian infrastructure, even one in which Türkiye says it paid Iran nothing. Background reporting by Eurasianet had already identified sanctions clarity as the central obstacle to the swap: supplies ran from March into the summer of the first year — about 465 million cubic metres by June — before stopping, while Washington's sanctions were extended to cover barter-style gas trades and Turkmengaz's chief blamed “technical reasons” and the minister pointed vaguely to payment issues. Bayraktar's briefing is the first on-record ministerial account that names OFAC directly.

Source: Eurasianet via EuropeSays — Sanctions cloud future of Turkey's gas deals with Iran and Turkmenistan (background: swap mechanics, 465 mcm delivered Mar-Jun, US sanctions extended to barter trades)

Why a stopped swap matters beyond Türkiye

Bayraktar used the same briefing to point at the alternative he does control: the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP), which carries Azerbaijani gas across Türkiye, has sufficient spare capacity to accommodate substantially larger export volumes — Ankara's standing pitch to Europe is that it can move more Caspian gas west if the gas can reach its network without crossing Iran. That is also why the OFAC admission matters for the region's energy map: US sanctions on Iran, intensified through 2026 and enforced through the war that began in February, are now shaping not only Iran's own exports but the transit choices of a NATO member that imports almost all of its gas, and whose own contracts with Tehran expire this November with no announced decision on renewal.

Source: AzerNews, Nov 6 2026 — Türkiye suspends Turkmen gas imports through Iran as US sanctions complicate energy plans (citing Middle East Eye)

What happens next: three clocks are running. Türkiye must decide this month whether to renew its Iranian gas contracts; the Turkmen swap stays frozen while the US-Iran conflict and OFAC exposure persist, whatever the contract paperwork says; and any Trans-Caspian route that would free Turkmen gas from Iranian territory remains years away on the reporting available. For Punjabi and Indian readers, the link is the same one running through this autumn's energy coverage: every route that closes around Iran keeps pressure on the Gulf energy system on which lakhs of Indian workers in the Gulf — and the fuel prices their families watch at home — depend.