Eastern Europe Calls for New Energy Routes
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Eastern European leaders met in the Azerbaijani capital Baku on Friday for a summit aspired at boosting energy supply routes from the Caspian region to Europe that bypass Russia.
Leaders of the Baltic nations, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Poland, and Ukraine were joined by Turkish President Abdullah Gul for the first time to talk about joint energy projects, including proposed oil and gas pipelines.
Turkey has become a major participant in the Middle East and Caucasus energy trade and has campaigned for a bigger diplomatic role in the volatile Caucasus region, scene of an armed conflict between Russia and Georgia in August.
A United States delegation led by Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman also attended. On Thursday, he said Washington desired to boost diversity of supply and said that there were troubles with a Russian plan for a new gas pipeline to Europe.
Bodman said that Russia’s South Stream project to build a gas line under the Black Sea to Bulgaria and on to southern and central Europe “is a very complicated project and requires more financing.
“We support projects which are being implemented by suppliers, transit countries and energy consumers that will contribute to global energy security,” Bodman told reporters in Baku.
Washington has powerfully endorsed routes for delivering Caspian oil and gas to Europe that bypass Russia including the European Union’s flagship Nabucco gas pipeline and a projected gas pipeline under the Caspian from Central Asia.
Russia has long asserted it is the dominating power in the Caucasus and campaigned a brief war with Azerbaijan’s neighbor Georgia in August, raising concerns about the security of supplies through the Caucasus.
The summit follows the introduction by the European Commission on Thursday of a new plan to boost energy supply security and cut back EU dependency on Russia.
The European Union’s executive body said it wanted to fortify crisis mechanisms and advance oil and gas stocks to respond to any disruption in supply.
The plan accentuated evolving a “southern gas corridor” to transport supplies from the Caspian Sea and Middle East regions, bypassing Russia, as well as an energy ring linking Europe and southern Mediterranean countries.
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