Azerbaijan, Baku, Sept.25 / Trend, A.Badalova /
The EU believes that it is in the interest of Turkmenistan and of Azerbaijan to be able to develop the Trans Caspian Pipeline, head of the EU Office in Baku, Roland Kobia told journalists on Tuesday.
He said that the EU still holds discussions with Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan on the Trans Caspian pipeline.
"We had a last round of ministerial meetings in Ashgabat in early September with Commissioner Günther Oettinger. So we are continuing our discussions," he said.
However, he stressed that it is not an easy task, because it is a very complex initiative.
"But we very much believe that it is in the interest of Turkmenistan and of Azerbaijan to be able to develop this corridor and make their all independent decisions," Kobia said.
According to Kobia, the EU does not believe that unsettled status of the Caspian Sea is an obstacle.
"First because there are no legal reasons for that," he said. If the implementation is discussed, then according to Kobia, it should be discussed between Baku and Ashgabat, but should not concern other states of the Caspian Sea.
Trans-Caspian gas pipeline running to around 300 kilometres will be laid from the Turkmen coast of the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijani, where it will be linked to the Southern Gas Corridor. Negotiations between Turkmenistan and the EU and other countries on the construction of the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline have been on-going 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.
However, later, Iran and Russia expressed negative attitude toward this project. Tehran and Moscow think that the pipeline construction will damage the Caspian Sea environment.