Nerdun Hacıoğlu writes from Moscow: Turkey wants to renew the bilateral gas agreement with Russia rather than requesting a discount in the existing deals. Gazprom and Turkey’s BOTAŞ have been discussing the deals. Turkey wants to renew the existing gas deal with Russia on a new principle of price setting, rather than asking for a gas discount. Gazprom will decide to accept or reject this idea.
Turkey has acted in the opposite direction of the western countries about Russia. And Turkey does not create any problems with the South Stream gas pipeline, noted Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak.
“The Akkuyu nuclear power plant project constitutes one of the building stones of the economic relations between the two countries. A new industrial sector has been born in Turkey. The project will be completed in line with the pre-defined plans. Loans can be secured to finance the project from other countries than the western countries,” he said. Novak also noted the bilateral trade is in favor of Russia. “Some $18 billion of goods and services were exported from Russia to Turkey in the last nine months of this year. This figure is quite high, as the total of the trade volume was $23.7 billion. This is mainly caused by Turkey’s huge energy imports,” he noted.
