Istanbul (AFP)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin officially inaugurated on Wednesday the TurkStream gas pipeline which symbolizes their rapprochement and will route to Turkey and Europe from
gas extracted in Russia.
During a ceremony with great pomp in Istanbul, Erdogan described the opening of this pipeline, which will be able to transport 31.5 billion cubic meters of gas each year, "a historic event for Turkish-Russian relations and the regional energy map ".
"The partnership between Russia and Turkey is strengthening in all areas despite the efforts of those who oppose it," said Putin, according to the translation of his words into Turkish.
After their speeches, the two heads of state symbolically opened the valve to the gas pipeline, also called Turkish Stream.
This infrastructure, whose construction began in 2017, symbolizes the spectacular rapprochement between Turkey and Russia, after a serious diplomatic crisis in 2015.
With this new gas pipeline, Turkey is securing the supply of its large energy-consuming cities in the west and establishing itself as a major energy hub.
For Russia, it is a question of feeding southern and south-eastern Europe by bypassing Ukraine, initially the main country of transit of the gas delivered to Europe, but with which relations have deteriorated profoundly since the annexation of Crimea and the start of an armed conflict in the Russian-speaking east in 2014.
The pipeline is made up of two parallel pipes some 930 km long that connect Anapa in Russia to Kiyiköy in Turkey (north-west).
TurkStream already started last week to supply Bulgaria, bordering Turkey, and is being extended towards Serbia and Hungary.
The inauguration of the pipeline comes at a time when tensions are mounting in Libya and Syria, two countries where Ankara and Moscow have divergent interests.
"With Russia, we have not let our recent differences of opinion take precedence over our common interests," said Erdogan.
© 2020 AFP