US State Department official: If Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan agree on construction of such a pipeline, no other country has veto power over that decision

"If Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan agree on construction of such a pipeline, no other country has veto power over that decision," said Daniel Stein, senior advisor to the U.S. State Department’s office of the special envoy for Eurasian energy, Bloomberg agency reported.

In a show of U.S. support for the project, an official from President Barack Obama’s administration said producer countries, including Turkmenistan, should make their own independent choices with regard to their energy resources.

Turkmenistan also plans to supply gas westward to Europe by building a pipeline under the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan, a route that would reduce European dependence on Russian gas.

The European Union-backed plan has drawn fierce criticism from the Kremlin, which argues that a trans-Caspian pipeline should be approved by all five Caspian littoral states, including Russia.


/APA/