Putin, Sezer hail special partnership

"We are grateful for support of this track of Turkey's policy on the development of the relations with Russia, and for our part we will do everything to implement the outlined plans," Putin told his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Necdet Sezer at a joint press conference in Moscow following their bilateral talks. The Russian president has proposed to Turkey cooperation in the nuclear energy sector and space exploration.

Putin and Sezer's talks focused on the development of bilateral cooperation especially in trade and energy and several regional security issues, including the situation in the Middle East, Iraq and the problem surrounding Iran's nuclear program. While Putin stressed that the stances of Russia and Turkey coincide on many key international issues, Sezer further underlined the importance of further developing Russian-Turkish relations on the basis of trust and mutual respect.

"I remember well what a warm reception you gave me in Turkey in December 2004," said Putin, adding that he had repeatedly met since then with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Sochi and in other places in Russia, and generally the relations between the countries have been developing just as they planned.

"Turkey assesses Russia as a most important force in the region and in the whole world in global terms, a most important neighbor," Sezer said in response.

Praising Russia's growing economic ties with Turkey, Putin told Sezer that there are new opportunities for opening joint projects.

"The implementation of major projects in the energy, transport, chemical industry and space exploration spheres are on the agenda. Broad prospects for cooperation also are opening in electric energy and nuclear energy sectors," Putin said.

"We have achieved growth in trade turnover, which is now growing by 30-45 percent a year," Putin said as Sezer expressed his estimate that trade turnover -- estimated last year at $12.6 billion -- could nearly double in coming years. "Since 1991, our trade and economic relations have developed at a high rate and this is reflected positively in the political situation," Sezer added.

Russia is the second-biggest exporter of goods to Turkey, after Germany, while Turkey is the eighth-largest source for imports to Russia.

Sezer praised the Blue Stream underwater gas pipeline and said Turkey was looking to a new gas project with Russia to link Turkey's Black Sea coast to the Mediterranean. The Turkish president also stated that the Blue Stream pipeline, built across the floor of the Black Sea, had raised cooperation in the gas sector to a new level.

In 2005, the Blue Stream, the largest Russian-Turkish energy project launched last fall, pumped 5 billion cubic meters of gas to Turkey, whereas by 2010 it is expected to carry 16 billion cubic meters annually.

Most of a total of 18 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas supplied to Turkey today comes via Ukraine. But Turkey could soon emerge as another major transit country for Russian gas.

The two leaders also discussed a Turkish proposal to build an overland pipeline that could carry Russian and Central Asian oil from a Black Sea port to Turkey's Mediterranean oil terminal of Ceyhan.

Turkey argues that the narrow Bosporus Strait, which runs through heavily populated Istanbul, is overcrowded with tankers, many carrying crude from the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiisk, posing a major environmental threat.

Russian state-run gas giant OAO Gazprom already signed a competing deal in May with a Greek construction firm to build a pipeline from Bulgaria's Black Sea port of Burgaz to the Greek Aegean port of Alexandropolis. While Turkish officials said they are determined to start the construction of the new pipeline even before a deal with Russia, Russian officials said a deal is possible only if it is proved to be functional and profitable.

A newly completed U.S.-backed oil pipeline from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Ceyhan, via the Georgian capital, Tbilisi (BTC) will be officially inaugurated next month.

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