Ankara Says Turkish Stream Talks with Russia Now Frozen

Turkey and Russia have frozen their talks over the proposed Turkish Stream gas pipeline project due to disagreement over a gas price discount, a Turkish government official has said.

“The parties have not ended the talks, but frozen them,” Turkish news daily Hurriyet quoted Energy Ministry Deputy Undersecretary Sefa Sadık Aytekin as saying on Thursday. “We can’t move forward in the negotiations at the moment.”

While Moscow insisted that talks on the discount to the price of deliveries of Russian natural gas to Turkey should be a prerequisite for the Turkish Stream project, Ankara only saw the talks as a starting point, according to the Turkish official.

Aytekin also said that Turkey had increased the gas price discount sought from Russia to 10.25% from its initial level of some 6%.

Turkey’s Interim Energy Minister Ali Rız Alaboyun said on Friday that it seems unlikely for the two sides to move their negotiations forward until a new elected government takes over in Ankara after the snap parliamentary elections scheduled for November 1, according to hurriyetdailynews.com.

Turkish Stream was prposed by Russia in December 2014 as a substitute to South Stream, a project which was designed to carry Russian gas to Central Europe beneath the Black Sea and via Bulgaria and other Eastern European states. Moscow said it abandoned South Stream after Bulgaria declined to issue construction permits due to objections from the European Commission.