Turkey may appeal to Russia – Gazprom

It would have delivered Russian gas to Eastern and Central Europe, but ran into opposition from the EU.

Russia has suspended preparatory work on the TurkStream pipeline project, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak told reporters.

“From an economic perspective, decisions [on Nord Stream 2] will be taken in line with legislation. Nobody expects to breach or bypass it”, he said.

Turkey is the second biggest customer of Russian gas after Germany.

Russia’s TASS agency earlier quoted Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller as saying if Turkey is intersted in Turkish Stream it must turn to Russian Federation so that talks are carried out.

“Implementation of the project Nord Stream-2 should have some positives for the Czech Republic”, said Industry Minister Jan Mladek, who added the Czechs still supported Ukraine as a transit country. He said though talks on building a nuclear power plant in Turkey remained open.

Industry minister Jan Mladek acknowledged the proposed Nord Stream-2 expansion could limit supply routes and energy security of European Union nations and hurt Ukraine but said the project should be viewed in wider context that could benefit the Czechs. But as recently as Wednesday, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said Turkey was buying oil illegally from the terrorist Islamic State group, and in late November, after Turkey shot down a Russian plane in Syrian territory, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the Turkish military of protecting ISIS, as the group is also called, and allowing it to act “boldly and blatantly”.

The TurkStream project would see four pipelines carrying Russian natural gas under the Black Sea, linking southern Russia to western Turkey.

The agreement on the Turkish Stream gas pipeline construction was achieved in December 2014.

The publication Global Risk Insights has described both Turkey and Russian Federation as being dependent upon the other when it comes to natural gas.