TURKEY OPPOSES GDF IN NABUCCO -ENERGY OFFICIALREUTERS WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 6 2008
By Orhan Coskun

Reuters
Feb 06 2008

ANKARA, Feb 6 (Reuters) – Turkey opposes Gaz de France’s inclusion
in the Nabucco gas pipeline project because of France’s stances on
Armenian accusations of genocide and Ankara’s EU bid, a senior energy
official said on Wednesday.

His comments to Reuters, reiterating Turkey’s previously stated
opposition, followed expressions of support from Romania’s president
and Hungarian firm MOL for GDF’s involvement in the project that
would bring Caspian gas to Europe.

The five billion-euro ($7.4 billion) pipeline is designed to pass via
Turkey and the Balkans to Austria and is a key plank of the European
Union’s plans to reduce its dependence on Russian gas imports. It is
planned for completion in 2012.

The Turkish official, who declined to be named, said that in normal
conditions Turkey would be glad to accept GDF as a partner, given
its experience and success in the energy sector.

"Turkey avoids using energy as a political instrument, it has no such
aim," he said.

"But France has unacceptable positions on the incidents of 1915,
which should be left to historians, and on the European Union and
other joint projects."

Ankara has previously said it opposed Gaz de France’s involvement in
the project because of the French National Assembly’s approval of a
bill making it a crime to deny Armenians suffered a genocide at the
hands of Ottoman Turks in 1915-16.

Ankara denies the killings were a systematic genocide.

Turkey is also upset about French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s
opposition to Ankara’s quest for European Union membership.

Sarkozy says the EU cannot absorb Turkey, a relatively poor Muslim
country with 70 million people, and says Brussels should instead
negotiate a "privileged partnership."

The Nabucco consortium is equally owned by oil and gas companies in the
transit countries — Austria’s OMV, Hungary’s MOL, Romania’s Transgaz,
Bulgaria’s Bulgargaz and Turkey’s Botas.

The Nabucco consortium on Tuesday confirmed German utility RWE will
join the project.

The Turkish Energy Ministry official said six partners was enough for
the project but that a seventh partner, from a gas-producing country,
could join.

Iran has stated its desire to supply gas to the Nabucco project.

"We are aiming to enter the European market to export gas and the
more partners we have in this long route of passage, the faster it
will be. Of course we appreciate that Turkey is the first part of
this route," Hojjatollah Ghanimifard, international affairs director
at the National Iranian Oil Company, told Reuters.

The Turkish official said Turkey was in favour of Turkey’s Botas
constructing the pipelines as far as Ankara, from where Turkey wants
the Nabucco project to begin.

It could construct these pipelines in cooperation with other companies,
he said. (Additional reporting by Peg Mackey, Writing by Daren Butler,
editing by Anthony Barker) More on…