Turkmenistan Hits Out at Russian Criticism
Russia is hindering Turkmen efforts to create a quality natural gas supply route to Europe, the country's Foreign Ministry has said.
A Turkmenistan official statement yesterday criticised Russia in a statement released to the press. In it, the Foreign Ministry said that Russia was unnecessarily critical of Turkmenistan's gas efforts, and said that the country and its media was distorting the view of Turkmenistan's progress.
The latest argument refers to work on the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline. Negotiations for the pipeline have already begun between the EU and Turkmenistan.
"There is a normal, civilized process of cooperation between sovereign and equal subjects of the energy market. However, it produced an inadequate response from some Russian officials and media," the official statement read.
"It is not even about clearly weak arguments that come up to the front but a counterproductive way of putting the question that aims at distortion the nature and content of the energy policy of Turkmenistan.”
Russia has previously said that it fears the effect on the environment from the work and the standards of the build. However, Turkmenistan has rejected this, saying that the pipeline would be built to the highest standards.
The statement says that Turkmenistan will continue to operate in a professional, and is keen to discuss and solve any potential issues that occur along the way.
"Cooperation with our European partners is developing in a businesslike and constructive way, and it will continue. With regard to emerging issues, Turkmenistan is ready to discuss them in an open manner with participation of all interested parties on the basis of mutual respect, responsibility and unbiased evaluation of current trends in international development."
Turkmenian president Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, recently met with his counterpart from Austria, Heinz Fischer, who was hoping to secure Turkmenistan’s pledge for progress on being a supplier of gas to the EU backed Nabucco gas pipeline.
“Today we get down to work on the contractual and legal basis for supplying Turkmen energy to Europe,” Berdymukhamedov said. The Tukmen leader's comments received critical reviews from Russia.
Turkmenistan holds the world’s fourth-largest natural gas reserves and plans to more than triple annual gas output to 230 billion cubic metres (bcm) by 2030, of which it would export 180 bcm.
Much of that increase will come from the South Iolotan field, estimated to be the world’s second-largest holding between 13.1 and 21.2 trillion cubic metres (tcm) of natural gas.
South Iolotan’s reserves, combined with those of two other fields, Yashlar and Minara, are estimated to totalled 26.2 rillion cubic metres.