TURKEY DENIES HALTING GAS TALKS WITH FRANCE

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
April 12, 2007

Turkey has not officially suspended talks with Gaz de France over the
Nabucco pipeline project to bring Caspian gas to Europe, the energy
minister said on Wednesday, but energy officials said Ankara had also
begun talks with other firms on joining Nabucco.

Senior Turkish energy officials had said last week talks with the
French company had been halted in protest at a French bill making
it a crime to deny genocide was committed against Armenians at the
hands of Ottoman Turks during World War One.

"Nabucco is an extremely important project for us and the process is
continuing normally. Gaz de France has not been suspended from the
project," Energy Minister Hilmi Guler told reporters. But he said
economic, strategic and political issues, including the French bill,
would be taken into account when selecting the sixth partner for the
project. A senior Turkish energy official, who declined to be named,
told Reuters the government had been pressured to tone down its
statement on GDF following political and diplomatic lobbying.

"Turkey, which is seeking European Union membership, looked favourably
at companies from Germany and Ukraine which want to join the project
as Nabucco’s sixth member instead of GDF," the official said.

The 4.6 billion euro ($6.14 billion) project envisages transporting
natural gas from Turkey to Austria, passing through Bulgaria, Romania
and Hungary and would reduce Europe’s dependency on Russian gas. The
four other countries have already approved a partnership with Gaz
de France in the project. Austrian oil and gas group OMV heads the
consortium planning to build the pipeline. Bulgargaz, Transgaz from
Romania, MOL of Hungary and Turkey’s Botas are also partners in the
project. The planned pipeline — a project backed by the EU and the
United States — would reduce Europe’s dependency on Russian gas but
has already hit several hurdles. If construction of the 3,300 km
(2,050 mile) pipeline starts in 2008, it could begin operating in
2011. It could transport annually 25.5 to 31 billion cubic metres of
gas by 2020. Turkey remains angry at the French national assembly’s
approval last year of a bill making it a crime to deny that the mass
killings of Armenians during World War One amounted to genocide. The
bill has not become law. Ankara rejects claims by Armenia and other
countries that Ottoman Turks committed a systematic genocide against
1.5 million Arme-nians during World War One.