Azerbaijan, Baku, Sept.12 / Trend A.Badalova/
Turkey could bring Azerbaijan's and Turkmenistan's positions closer with regard to the Trans Caspian Pipeline, Editor-in-Chief at Eurasia Energy Observer, Andrej Tibold believes.
"Here the interests of Turkey and the EU are partially aligned, which explains Turkey's involvement in the negotiations on the Trans Caspian Pipeline," Tibold wrote Trend via e-mail.
The Trans-Caspian gas pipeline with length of about 300 kilometres will be laid from the Turkmen coast of the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan, where it will be linked to the Southern Gas Corridor.
Last week the negotiations of high energy representatives of Azerbaijan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and the European Commissioner for Energy Gunther Oettinger were held in Ashgabat. One of the major issues of the negotiations was the implementation of the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline project.
Tibold believes that there are several obstacles on the way of the Trans Caspian pipeline project implementation, which are mainly of a political nature.
Negotiations between Turkmenistan and the EU and other countries on the construction of the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline have been held since the late 90s.
In September, 2011 the EU Council gave a mandate for negotiations between the EU, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan to build the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline. Russia expressed a negative attitude toward this project.
The EU hopes that the sides involved in the project will get more details of the issue during the further meetings at Ministers' level.