TANAP Pipeline: Not a moment to lose

SOCAR Turkey says that Baku and Ankara will speed up the construction of the TANAP project. 

“We understand that the construction must be completed as soon as possible… We cannot lose a second,” SOCAR Turkey's CEO, Kenan Yavuz, told the Anadolu Agency on Sunday. 

At the same time, SOCAR officials were also dousing speculations regarding those killed on the company's Günesli oil platform, explaining that the fire should be treated as an "incident" and was not the result of sabotage.

One SOCAR employee is confirmed dead and 30 have gone missing after a fire ignited on the company's oil platform on Friday, the result of underwater gas pipeline damage from a storm. A search and rescue mission is ongoing to find those still missing.

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev received telephone calls from the leaders of Turkey, Georgia and Russia, who gave him their condolences for those casualties. 

"President of the Republic of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made a telephone call to President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev," reads a statement published on Aliyev's website on Sunday.  

The note is similar to the one regarding a telephone call between Azerbaijan's President and the President of Georgia Giorgi Margvelashvili.

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a message along the same lines. The note, which has been published on the Kremlin’s website, explains that the fire probably resulted from a gas line fault.