Erdoğan will not attend Nabucco pipeline meet
Güncelleme Tarihi:
by Fulya Özerkan
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Ocak 21, 2009 00:00
ANKARA - Hungary's ambassador in charge of EU's flagship Nabucco project says Turkey will be represented by Energy Minister Hilmi Güler instead of the prime minister at an intergovermental summit for the pipeline project.
Turkey will not be represented at the highest level at the inter-governmental Nabucco summit beginning next Monday it has been revealed, as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will be unable to make his way to Budapest.
"According to the latest information I have received, Erdoğan won't come and the Turkish delegation will be led by Energy Minister Hilmi Güler," Hungary's ambassador in charge of Nabucco told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review in a telephone interview yesterday.
Mihaly Bayer, who held talks in Ankara in September to extend an invitation to Turkey months before the summit, said Hungary did its best to secure Erdoğan's arrival. After Bayer, Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany arrived in Ankara for talks on Nabucco in November.
"We haven't received any excuses and we haven't asked for excuses. Certainly he (Erdoğan) has obligations that make him busy and maybe stuck to Ankara for the time being, but I am not aware of the so-called reasons or explanations," Bayer told the Daily News.
"This is a decision to be made by the Turkish government. What we are looking forward to hearing is a very strong and very supportive Turkish position on every issue that is on the table (about Nabucco) and I hope it will happen," Bayer said.
The proposed Nabucco pipeline, aimed at reducing Europe's dependence on Russian gas, will carry supplies from the Caspian Sea to Europe via Turkey.
Hungary, set to host the summit from Jan. 26 - 27, has invited Austria, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and Germany to participate, as potential recipients of the Nabucco natural gas. Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Egypt and Iraq were invited as potential suppliers and Georgia was invited as a possible transit country. Also invited are the EU's energy commissioner, the United States, the international Nabucco consortium, and the Czech Republic, holder of the EU's rotating-term presidency.
Bayer stressed it was up to the Nabucco partners to decide who should lead their delegation and said his country wanted to see all Nabucco countries represented at the highest level, "in order to demonstrate that we are all very much supportive of the project."
Linking Nabucco to EU talks
In Brussels, Erdoğan has threatened to back out of the strategic pipeline project if the energy chapter in Turkey's EU accession negotiations remains blocked. Bayer declined to comment on Erdoğan's remarks and only said: "We know that Turkey has been trying to persuade the EU to open the energy chapter and Hungary supports it; we don't see any obstacle that should prevent us from opening the energy chapter in accession talks if the two parties believe they are ready for that."
Erdoğan's move to tie the Nabucco project, which is the backbone of energy cooperation between Ankara and the 27-nation bloc, to Turkey's EU entry talks has been met with a cooler reception from other EU diplomats.
"The EU places top priority on energy diversification and Nabucco is part of that policy. Neither the pipeline nor the source to fill it is available at present. I cannot understand why Erdoğan threatens, as what he says is premature. Turkish EU ties are not deadlocked either," said an EU diplomat speaking anonymously. The EU has stepped up efforts to diversify its energy sources since Russia’s invasion of Georgia last summer and the dispute between Moscow and Kiev that has curbed supplies to Europe.
The recent gas dispute has clearly shown how important the transmission of energy supplies is, while changing the established approaches, according to Bayer. "I think we have a window of opportunity that is even larger than it was before," he said. "I don't think there were many experts who could imagine that zero molecules of gas would be transmitted to Europe through the Russia-Ukrainian gas pipeline and it happened."
"According to the latest information I have received, Erdoğan won't come and the Turkish delegation will be led by Energy Minister Hilmi Güler," Hungary's ambassador in charge of Nabucco told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review in a telephone interview yesterday.
Mihaly Bayer, who held talks in Ankara in September to extend an invitation to Turkey months before the summit, said Hungary did its best to secure Erdoğan's arrival. After Bayer, Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany arrived in Ankara for talks on Nabucco in November.
"We haven't received any excuses and we haven't asked for excuses. Certainly he (Erdoğan) has obligations that make him busy and maybe stuck to Ankara for the time being, but I am not aware of the so-called reasons or explanations," Bayer told the Daily News.
"This is a decision to be made by the Turkish government. What we are looking forward to hearing is a very strong and very supportive Turkish position on every issue that is on the table (about Nabucco) and I hope it will happen," Bayer said.
The proposed Nabucco pipeline, aimed at reducing Europe's dependence on Russian gas, will carry supplies from the Caspian Sea to Europe via Turkey.
Hungary, set to host the summit from Jan. 26 - 27, has invited Austria, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and Germany to participate, as potential recipients of the Nabucco natural gas. Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Egypt and Iraq were invited as potential suppliers and Georgia was invited as a possible transit country. Also invited are the EU's energy commissioner, the United States, the international Nabucco consortium, and the Czech Republic, holder of the EU's rotating-term presidency.
Bayer stressed it was up to the Nabucco partners to decide who should lead their delegation and said his country wanted to see all Nabucco countries represented at the highest level, "in order to demonstrate that we are all very much supportive of the project."
Linking Nabucco to EU talks
In Brussels, Erdoğan has threatened to back out of the strategic pipeline project if the energy chapter in Turkey's EU accession negotiations remains blocked. Bayer declined to comment on Erdoğan's remarks and only said: "We know that Turkey has been trying to persuade the EU to open the energy chapter and Hungary supports it; we don't see any obstacle that should prevent us from opening the energy chapter in accession talks if the two parties believe they are ready for that."
Erdoğan's move to tie the Nabucco project, which is the backbone of energy cooperation between Ankara and the 27-nation bloc, to Turkey's EU entry talks has been met with a cooler reception from other EU diplomats.
"The EU places top priority on energy diversification and Nabucco is part of that policy. Neither the pipeline nor the source to fill it is available at present. I cannot understand why Erdoğan threatens, as what he says is premature. Turkish EU ties are not deadlocked either," said an EU diplomat speaking anonymously. The EU has stepped up efforts to diversify its energy sources since Russia’s invasion of Georgia last summer and the dispute between Moscow and Kiev that has curbed supplies to Europe.
The recent gas dispute has clearly shown how important the transmission of energy supplies is, while changing the established approaches, according to Bayer. "I think we have a window of opportunity that is even larger than it was before," he said. "I don't think there were many experts who could imagine that zero molecules of gas would be transmitted to Europe through the Russia-Ukrainian gas pipeline and it happened."