07 October 2015•Update: 09 October 2015
ANKARA
Political factors will not affect agreement between Russia and Turkey over the proposed Turkish Stream natural gas pipeline, Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller said Wednesday.
Miller spoke after Russian jets violated Turkish air space over the weekend and it was accused of bombing Syrian opposition groups supported by Turkey and the West in the fight against Daesh.
“We have already started work on an intergovernmental agreement,” Miller told reporters in St Petersburg, according to the state-run Sputnik news agency.
“It does not include talks on concrete details concerning the capacity of the pipeline or schedules for the project implementation but the work on the text of the agreement is underway and it is not influenced by any factors.”
On Tuesday, Miller said Gazprom had decided to nearly halve the planned capacity of Turkish Stream pipeline project to 32 billion cubic meters a year, from an original capacity of 63 bcm.
He explained the decision as being due to plans to expand the Nord Stream gas pipeline to Germany.
Also Tuesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned of worsening relations with Russia.
“If Russia loses a friend like Turkey, with which it has conducted many businesses, it will lose a lot,” he said.
The Turkish Stream pipeline is planned to bring gas to Europe without crossing Ukraine. It will cross the Black Sea, emerging close to Turkey’s border with the EU.
