Turkey and Russia signed a bilateral agreement on Monday to build the TurkStream undersea gas pipeline, which will allow Moscow to strengthen its position in the European gas market and cut energy supplies via Ukraine.
The agreement was signed in Istanbul in the presence of Russian president Vladimir Putin and Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan.
The two leaders also discussed the war in Syria with Russia’s Vladimir Putin on Monday, including Turkey’s military operations there and the need to co-operate on aid to Aleppo.
At a joint news conference, Erdogan and Putin said they both agreed on the importance of delivering aid to Aleppo, whose opposition-held eastern sector has been encircled by Russian-backed Syrian forces for all but a short period since July.
“We have a common position that everything must be done to deliver humanitarian aid to Aleppo. The only issue is . . . ensuring the safety of aid delivery,” Putin said. Russia has backed Syrian president Bashar al-Assad with a year-long air campaign against the rebels fighting him.
Syria positions
Turkey backs the rebels and wants to see Assad out of power. Erdogan said he was confident that a normalisation in ties with Russia, strained after Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet near the Syrian border last year, would nonetheless be fast.
“Today has been a full day with President Putin of discussing Russia-Turkish relations ... We had a chance to discuss Syria in detail,” Erdogan said. “We discussed ... how we can cooperate on this matter, especially on humanitarian aid to Aleppo, what strategy can we implement so that people in Aleppo can find peace. We will come together with our foreign ministries and top military leaders and intelligence officers,” he said.
The gas deal foresees construction of two pipelines on the bed of the Black Sea. It was reported earlier that each line from Russia to Turkey would have the capacity to carry 15.75 billion cubic metres of gas a year.
As part of the deal, Russia also agreed on a gas price discount mechanism for Turkey, Putin said.
Turkey is the biggest buyer of Russian gas after Germany, but a gas price dispute between Turkish pipeline operator Botas and Russia’s state gas producer Gazprom led to Botas launching international arbitration proceedings against Gazprom in October 2015.
Russian energy minister Alexander Novak told reporters on Monday that talks with Botas on a price discount were underway.
TurkStream is part of Russia’s plans to bypass Ukraine, which is the main route for Russian energy supplies to Europe. Spats over pricing between Kiev and Moscow have lead to suspensions of Russian gas flows to Europe via Ukraine.
– Reuters