Turkmen Leader Silent on Nabucco
Agence France-Presse reports that Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov noticeably omitted to mention Europe’s planned Nabucco pipeline project in a key address to an annual energy exhibition Wednesday in which he lauded deeper energy relations with China and Iran.
Berdimuhamedov’s speech, presented at the opening of an international exhibition ‘Oil and Gas of Turkmenistan-2010,’ is followed closely by industry watchers looking for clues into the thinking of the leader of the ex-Soviet republic, the news agency noted.
"Exporting natural gas to the Russian Federation, the People's Republic of China and the Islamic Republic of Iran, our country keeps pipeline modernization activities at the center of its attention," AFP reported the president as saying.
He added: "Alongside conducting negotiations on the construction of a gas pipeline in the second direction to China, Turkmenistan spares no effort to launch construction of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline."
Turkmenistan, which sits on the world’s fourth largest gas supplies, wants to free itself from Russia’s grip on its exports following many months of acrimonious relations over gas supplies and prices.