BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 14. Leaders of several Balkan countries have asked Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to raise the issue of uninterrupted supplies of Russian gas this winter during a meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin scheduled on the sidelines of the upcoming SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) summit, Turkish Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Vahit Kirisci said, Trend reports via the Haberler news portal.
"First, we [Erdogan and the delegation accompanying him] visited Bosnia and Herzegovina, then Serbia, then Croatia. The request [of these countries] addressed to us was such: You’ll attend the SCO summit. Please convey our request to Russian President Putin, as well as President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, with whom you have good relations, not to reduce the volumes of fuel and gas supplied to us in the coming winter," the portal reports citing Kirisci.
Earlier, in his speech on “Azerbaijan’s role in ensuring energy security” at the 48th edition of the international Cernobbio Forum held in Italy, President Ilham Aliyev said that 13.5 billion cubic meters of gas have been supplied to Europe for one and a half year, 11.7 billion out of that to Italy.
“This year, we plan to increase the volume and to supply the Italian market with 10 billion cubic meters of gas. Our total export will exceed 22 billion cubic meters, and there is a huge potential for its increase,” the president also said.
According to the Ionian-Adriatic pipeline project, Azerbaijani gas will be supplied to three Balkan countries.