Friday, 20 February 2009VILNIUS - The Turkish foreign minister Ali Babacan said on Friday that Turkey wanted Russia to take place in the Nabucco project.
Turkey's Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said that Turkey wanted to see Russia in the Nabucco pipeline project.
The Nabucco pipeline is a planned natural gas pipeline that will transport natural gas from Turkey to Austria, via Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary. It will run from Erzurum in Turkey to Baumgarten an der March, a major natural gas hub in Austria.
"If Russia feels itself excluded, it has instruments to hamper Nabucco," Babacan told reporters in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius.
Babacan said that Turkey did not see Nabucco as a project of competition, and did have no objection to connection of the Russian gas to Nabucco project at a certain amount.
The minister said that natural gas that would flow through the Nabucco pipeline had not been provided yet.
"First you have to provide the source and then find the consumer, and I think we need Russia to provide both of them," Babacan said.
* MULTI-DIMENSIONAL FOREIGN POLICY
Babacan said that Turkish-Russian relations should be considered within the scope of multi-dimensional foreign policy.
"On one side, we are a NATO member, i.e. we have an alliance with NATO," he said.
Babacan also said that Turkey was a country progressing on the road to European Union (EU) membership.
"We are neighbors with Russia and we think our political and economic relations should be well," he said.
Babacan also said that a NATO member did not have to have tense relations with Russia, and exclude Russia.
The Turkish foreign minister said that Turkey had given priority to its cooperation with Russia, and was definitely against creating a competition or an atmosphere of conflict with Russia, or to exclude that country.
Babacan said that every one had to be aware of new Russia, boost cooperation with the Russian Federation because all parties were losing with the mutual tension.
The Turkish foreign minister said that Turkey's stance on the Georgian-Russian tension in August 2008 was appreciated by both Russia and the EU, and Ankara had always based its foreign policy on international law and human rights.
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Friday, 20 February 2009
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