Turkey outlines position on Russian gas

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday that Ankara would be unable to refuse natural gas deliveries from its major supplier, Russia.

“We get 50% of natural gas from Russia. This is a strategic issue for us, strategic relationship. We cannot break it,” he stressed while addressing a group of Turkish youth, according to his Twitter page.

Erdogan recalled that Ankara is working together with Moscow on implementing the massive Akkuyu nuclear power plant project, which is scheduled to be completed next year.

In 2020, the two countries launched the long-anticipated offshore pipeline TurkStream, which delivers Russian gas to Turkey and further to southern European states. The 930km pipeline across the bottom of the Black Sea became operational on January 1.

The two-string pipeline, which was created as an alternative to the South Stream pipeline (after Bulgaria ditched the project in 2014), boasts a total capacity of 31.5 billion cubic meters. One of the lines supplies Russian gas to Turkey, while the other serves the nations of southern and southeastern Europe.

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