Azernews.Az

By Nigar Abbasova

Russia needs "ironclad guarantees" to resume work on the South Stream pipeline project after it was stalled due to opposition from the European Commission, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on August, 9 following the talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Sputnik International reported.

Putin noted that Russia saw that Bulgaria was ready to return to implementing the project, having put it on hold at the request of the European Commission.

"We suffered certain losses from the refusal of our European partners to return to this project. Mere intentions are not enough now, we need absolutely ironclad guarantees of a legal nature. They do not exist,” he said.

Itinerary of the pipeline with the total capacity of 63 billion of cubic metres was intended to cover the territories of Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Slovenia, and Italy. The project, with the total worth of $15.5 billion was initiated by Gazprom, which hold 50 percent of the shares, while German Wintershall, French Electricite de France (EDF) and Italian ENI were among other shareholders.

Earlier, Ria Novosti reported that the parliamentarians of Bulgaria have rejected the proposal on the resumption of the South stream project.

The European Commission was against the implementation of the South Stream as the project was allegedly in breach of the EU third energy package, which envisages that one and the same company is not eligible to implement delivery and operate the pipeline.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia would halt the implementation of the South Stream on December 1, 2014. Turkish stream project came to the foreground following the decision of Russia.

However, the Turkish Stream project was frozen in late 2015 due to sharp deterioration of relations between Moscow and Ankara when Turkey shot down a Russian Su-24 bomber with two pilots on board. On June 27, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a letter of condolences to Putin over the death of Russian Su-24 pilot and expressed his condolences over the incident. After that, the relations between the two countries began to improve.

Russian President Vladimir Putin recently said that the Turkish Stream pipeline project, which is aimed at delivery of Russian natural gas to Southern Europe via Turkey may get underway in the near future, mentioning that the project is not considered to be an alternative to the South Stream but an opportunity to expand the cooperation of the country in the sphere of gas supplies both with Europe and with Turkey.

Meanwhile, President Erdogan recently said that the Turkish Stream project will be implemented, adding that the country will take the necessary steps to ensure the supply of Russian gas to Europe through the pipeline.

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Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova

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