Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that he had proposed that Russia, Turkey and Italy sign a trilateral agreement on the South Stream natural gas pipeline planned to be built from Russia to Europe across the Black Sea and the crude oil pipeline set to link the Turkish ports of Samsun and Ceyhan.
Russia has agreements with Turkey on the two projects.
"I even proposed a trilateral intergovernmental agreement between Turkey, Russia and Italy because the three countries are involved both in the former and in the latter project," Putin told a news conference in reference to talks on Wednesday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "Mr. Prime Minister agreed, and now we’ll be analyzing this matter with our Italian partners."
In August of last year, Putin and Erdogan signed protocols on Russian-Turkish cooperation in the oil and gas industries.
In the oil protocol, the two countries pledged to set up a working group to find out how much oil would be available for the Samsun-Ceyhan pipeline and study the transportation aspects of the project.
The 555-kilometer pipeline would take oil from Samsun which lies on the Black Sea, to Ceyhan on the Mediterranean before it is carried to Europe. It will have projected capacity to transport 1.5 million barrels per day.
In the gas protocol, Turkey promised to allow Russia to conduct exploration work on South Stream in its territorial waters.
In the same document, the two countries stated an intention to extend a contract to supply Russian gas to Europe along the so-called "western route" – via Ukraine, Moldova, Romania and Bulgaria – which expires in 2011, and reaffirmed an intention to cooperate under Blue Stream 2, a project to deliver Russian gas to the Middle East.
