Turkey says Nabucco support project to be opened to signature in March

Yildiz spoke to reporters after a high executive meeting on Nabucco Natural Gas Pipeline project, attended by representatives of project partners in Ankara.

Responding to a question as to whether, the Nabucco project would be a driving force in Turkey's acession negotiations with the EU, Yildiz said such projects could not be isolated from international affairs.

He said opening of the energy chapter in acsession negotiations came up in the summit two weeks ago between Turkey and the EU Term President Spain adding that Turkey deserved to open this chapter long ago.

"First of all Turkey is technically ready for electrical grid connection with EU Countries. The second thing to bear in my is that, Turkey is a partner of a common denominator like the Nabucco project which can come to the fore in international relations. Just like Austria, Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary. I don't think EU countries can remain indifferent to this," said Yildiz.

Werner Auili, a senior official of the Nabucco partner Austrian Gas Company OMW, commented on source countries for the Nabucco project.

Auli said talks with Azerbaijan, a possibble source country for the project continued, noting that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev extended support to the project two weeks ago. He said Aliyev was sympathetic to the idea of providing gas from the Caspian basin for the project.

Auli also said talks were underway with Iraq to obtain gas from a massive gas field in the North of Iraq. He said another possible source could be Turkmenistan saying that the Nabnucco consortium was alos carrying talks with this country.

He said Turkmenistan's President said he would also extend support to the project.


/World Bulletin/