Erdogan agrees with Putin’s gas hub proposal

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan backs the Kremlin’s idea of creating an international gas hub in Turkey and wants his government to quickly present implementation plans, media reported yesterday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed piping natural gas to southern Europe via Turkey following the near total disruption of Russian supplies via the Nord Stream project.

The idea raised the immediate alarm of European powers such as France saying it made “no sense”.

Russia already supplies Turkey with gas via the TurkStream link under the Black Sea.

Erdogan said on his return flight from talks with Putin in Kazakhstan on Thursday that the new distribution centre would probably be established in Thrace, a northwestern region near Bulgaria.

“We have a national distribution centre, but of course now this will be an international distribution centre,” Erdogan told reporters after holding his fourth meeting with the Russian leader in the past three months.

“There will be no waiting on this issue.”

Gas prices have skyrocketed since the beginning of Russia’s war and Europe has struggled to find alternative energy supplies after Russia strangled deliveries in response to Western sanctions.

The latest spike came after a series of blasts this month destroyed both lines of Russia’s Nord Stream pipeline to Germany.

Putin said this week that Russia has also thwarted a planned attack against the TurkStream pipeline, without providing evidence or details.”We are quickly establishing a security net” for the new gas distribution centre project, Erdogan said.

A new distribution centre would take years to complete and require massive investments that Russia might not be able to afford as its economy shrinks from the impact of Western sanctions imposed over its invasion of Ukraine.