Russian Foreign Ministry hopes for renewal of talks on Turkish Stream

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs hopes that the talks on the Turkish Stream project will resume soon.

“We expect soonest renewal of the negotiation process, particularly, on the intergovernmental agreement a draft of which the Turkish party has been considering since May,” says a comment published on the ministry’s website.

The comment appeared on the eve of the fifth meeting of a joint strategic planning group. The meeting is to be held on November 25 in Istanbul under chairmanship of Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Turkish Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlioglu.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly expressed hope for renewal of the negotiation process. In September, the ministry has published a similar comment before a meeting of Lavrov and Sinirlioglu in Sochi.

The Kremlin used to say that the process would revive after extraordinary parliamentary elections in Turkey held on November 1. However, no intergovernmental agreement on the Turkish Stream has been signed yet, there is no understanding how many lines of the pipeline are to be constructed from the planned four. There is still no consensus on the gas discount for Turkey, while the issue was the key one in previous talks on construction of the pipeline. At present time, the Turkish claim is under arbitration of the international court.

Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller says the project can be implemented very soon, as soon as the international agreement is signed. Experts in the industry are skeptical about it. They even suppose the project can be ceased just like the South Stream a year ago.

Both projects were supposed to supply Europe with the Russian gas bypassing Ukraine.