Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 5
By Aygun Badalova - Trend:
Turkey will unlikely to agree to Russia's new gas pipeline deal that would allow Russia to establish control over such a gas trading hub, former US ambassador to Azerbaijan, Director of the International Centre for Defense Studies in Tallinn, Matthew Bryza told Trend.
"Ankara does not wish to be dependent on Russia and is likely to demand a higher price discount and greater volumes of natural gas imports than Russia is willing to offer," Bryza said.
Turkey has already received a 6-percent discount on gas from Russia, which will be implemented from Jan. 1, 2015. However, Ankara hopes the discount to reach 15 percent.
Bryza believes that Russia will try to reach an arrangement with Turkey that allows Russia some degree of control over natural gas exports from TANAP into Greece.
"But, I also believe that neither Turkey nor the EU will permit Russia to attain such control," Bryza said.
During the negotiations in Turkey on Dec.1, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that under the current conditions, as well as due to the unconstructive position of the EU, Russia can't continue the implementation of South Stream project. Later, CEO of Russia's Gazprom Alexey Miller said that the South Stream project has been shut down.
The same day Gazprom and Turkey's BOTAS state pipeline company signed a memorandum of understanding on construction of an offshore gas pipeline across the Black Sea towards Turkey with the annual capacity of 63 billion cubic meters of gas per year.
Under this agreement, it is planned to supply 14 billion cubic meters of gas to Turkey and the remaining part - nearly 50 billion cubic meters of gas - to the Turkish-Greek border.
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Aygun Badalova is Trend Agency's staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @AygunBadalova