- Turkish President Erdogan has said that Ankara will work with Moscow to establish a natural gas hub in Turkey.
- This comes a week after Russian President Putin offered to redirect natural gas supplies to Europe via Turkey.
- Putin’s proposal surprised Turkish officials last week.
Russian President Vladimir Putin – whose plans to sell natural gas directly to Europe have been rejected – is now using Turkey to sell fuel to the continent instead.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, on Wednesday, that his country will work with Russia to establish a “natural gas hub” in Turkey. Anadolu Agency mentioned.
The development comes a week after Putin offered to redirect natural gas supplies to Europe via Turkey – a proposal Turkish officials were surprised.
“This is the first time we’ve heard this. So it’s too early to make an assessment,” Turkish Energy Minister Fatih Donmez said at the time, according to Reuters. “These are things that need to be discussed.”
Putin and Erdogan He met a day after Putin proposed the plan, and the Turkish leader said on October 14 that the two countries’ energy authorities would begin work on the proposal immediately.
“We will establish a center here with Turkish gas coming from Russia,” Erdogan said in Anatolia, referring to the gas coming from Russia as “Turkish gas.”
Erdogan added to his AK Party members in parliament on Wednesday, according to Anatolia, “and according to him, Putin announced to the world that Europe can get its natural gas from Turkey.”
Turkey held Long-term ambitions to become an energy hub.
Erdogan’s quick endorsement of Putin’s proposal to establish a natural gas hub in Turkey highlights the deepening of relations between Moscow and Ankara, a development West worry.
Turkey – a member of NATO and a candidate country for European Union Membership – condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine but did not impose sanctions on Russia or close its airspace to it. Russia is one of Turkey Senior business partners.
Europe weaning Natural gas imports from Russia But Putin is still trying to sell fuel to the continent
Erdogan’s deal with Putin comes three weeks after leaks Discover On the main Nord Stream pipelines that carry natural gas from Russia to Germany.
Both pipelines, which run under the Baltic Sea, have been ConsistsDenmark and Sweden informed the United Nations that the leaks were caused by Hundreds of pounds of TNT.
The we And the Germany Among the countries that believe sabotage is involved, with some top lawmakers in Germany publicly declaring pointing finger in Russia. For his part, Putin named the incident.”An act of international terrorism. “
Russia was already slowing down natural gas exports to Europe before the pipeline was damaged, but the gas supply through the two pipelines was stopped indefinitely after the leaks. Nord Steam 1 It supplied about 35% of the EU’s gas imports.
However, Putin is keen to continue selling natural gas to Europe. Energy is an essential pillar of the Russian economy, and it is responsible for much more one-fifth of its gross domestic productso cutting off the country’s energy revenue would hurt its chest for the war in Ukraine.
He said last week that Russia may continue to supply fuel via alternative routes, including under the Black Sea bordering Turkey in the south.
“We can transfer the lost volumes of Nord Streams along the bottom of the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea region,” Putin said at an energy conference in Moscow on October 12. Reuters.
This will create a new route for transporting natural gas to Europe via Turkey, Putin said, thus “creating the largest gas center for Europe in Turkey.”
He also offered to send natural gas to Germany via an undamaged part of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline – if the EU wanted it. “We are ready to provide additional quantities in the autumn-winter period,” Putin told Reuters.
But the German government categorically refused outside Proposing to use Nord Stream 2 on October 12, saying “Russia is no longer a reliable supplier of energy.”
This isn’t the first time Putin has suggested Nord Stream 2. Last month , He said the EU could simply run the new Nord Stream 2 pipeline if it wanted more natural gas from Russia.
Nord Stream 2 has not started commercial operations due to Germany The project was postponed days before Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 Pipeline, which stretches under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, was completed in September 2021.
Alexander Novak, Russia’s deputy prime minister, said in September that the country’s gas exports to the European Union would decline by about 50 billion cubic meters in 2022, Interfax The news agency reported. That would be about a third of the 155 billion cubic meters of Russian gas imported by the European Union in 2021, according to International Energy Agency data.
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