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Azerbaijani, Turkish and Turkmen leaders will meet in Ashgabat on Saturday for discussions that will include the export of Caspian gas to Europe through the NABUCCO pipeline, reports say.
The meeting between Presidents Ilham Aliyev, Abdullah Gul and Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov is seen as a continuation of the international energy summit held in Baku on November 14. The Baku summit, aimed at promoting energy supply routes from the resource-rich Caspian region to European markets bypassing Russia, concluded with the signing of a declaration by the presidents of Azerbaijan, Turkey, Georgia, Ukraine, Poland, and Lithuania. Also, a number of European countries and the United States joined as parties to the document. However, key Caspian energy producers Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan declined to sign the declaration, which called for the curtailing of the Russian monopoly over export routes to the West.
Some analysts believe the Ashgabat summit seeks to achieve the adoption of a political decision on the Western-backed NABUCCO project. Regardless of its outcome, the talks are an important step toward eliminating the tension between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan on the Caspian legal status issue and bringing about closer diplomatic relations between Baku and Ashgabat. In fact, Turkmenistan has already made it clear that it was interested in drawing closer to Azerbaijan by demonstrating its vast energy potential at a major event held in Baku several months ago. Further, the NABUCCO project is of great importance not only for Azerbaijan, but also for Turkmenistan since there is currently no outlet for Turkmen gas other than a route passing through Russia. Only a pipeline linking the country to Iran is available, and its capacity is considered insignificant. Moreover, the initiative on creating a conduit stretching to China through Kazakhstan remains only an idea on paper.
Further, NABUCCO will not only ensure access of Turkmen gas to energy-thirsty world markets, but is considered essential to promote an influx of Western investments to the region, and Turkmenistan in particular. Therefore, the benefits of the project for Turkmenistan, which is in need of modernizing its oil and gas infrastructure and production capacities, are deemed to be considerable.
The NABUCCO project, worth 8 billion euros, seeks to deliver 30 billion cubic meters of gas to European markets through a 3,300-kilometer pipeline traveling from Azerbaijan and Turkey to Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Austria. 20bn cu. m. of the volume will be provided by Azerbaijan which is, so far, the only country that has agreed to transport its gas via NABUCCO. Delivering the first gas shipment via the pipeline is expected in 2013. In the future, Kazakhstan is expected to participate in the project, as well.
However, some countries remain opposed to the NABUCCO project. Russian officials deem the NABUCCO pipeline to be a threat to the North and South Stream projects, which Moscow has agreed to build with Germany and Italy.

Skepticism
Work is still progressing on the NABUCCO pipeline, a European analyst has said, also noting that its future still remains uncertain.
Antonio Missiroli, director of the European Policy Center, told Radio Liberty that NABUCCO was an important project for Europe since its route will deliver Central Asian gas to energy-thirsty European markets through Azerbaijan and thus reduce the EU countries` dependence on Russian supplies. However, the implementation of the project is being delayed by the EU itself, which has not done enough work to make this happen either from a political or economic standpoint, the analyst said.
Missiroli noted that, presently, European companies are not actively participating in speeding the project as "there are no guarantees that NABUCCO will actually materialize."
Missiroli further said the situation with the NABUCCO project changed following Russia`s military incursion into Georgia, which destabilized the already volatile region. Regional states and companies are also trying, somehow, to get Russian assistance in paving the way for the Western-backed project, he noted.
"This may not entail Gazprom`s [Russia`s gas monopoly] direct participation in NABUCCO, but they will try to get Russia involved in it in some shape or form, so that this project would have less of an anti-Russian slant," Missiroli concluded.