By Emre Peker
ISTANBUL--Turkey and Russia have held the first round of talks
to build a new pipeline between the two Black Sea neighbors as
Moscow seeks an alternative to the natural-gas link to the European
Union it scrapped earlier this month amid political tensions over
Ukraine.
The negotiations started Wednesday following the memorandum
Turkey signed with Russia during President Vladimir Putin's state
visit to Ankara last week, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz
said on Thursday.
Mr. Yildiz said final deliberations may last until 2020.
It is too soon to say whether a new project will get the green
light to replace the South Stream pipeline which Russia's state-run
energy firm Gazprom had undertaken to build, the minister said.
The proposed new pipeline--billed "Turk Stream"--would be a
major piece of energy infrastructure in its own right and help
Turkey become an energy hub with a gas exporting capabilities that
may involve a liquid-natural-gas facility, Mr. Yildiz said.
Mr. Putin 's surprise announcement that he would drop the South
Stream pipeline under the Black Sea to Bulgaria in favor of an
alternative route through Turkey put the EU in a complicated
spot.
Brussels has been working to reduce Europe's heavy reliance on
Russian energy, an effort that took on added urgency this year with
the conflict in Ukraine--a major transit country. But until
alternative suppliers have been secured, European countries,
particularly in the southeast, remain vulnerable to any cutoff in
shipments.
While the route via Turkey could supply gas to Bulgaria, Greece
and other countries in the region, it won't be as extensive as
South Stream, which was to stretch as far as Austria.
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