Turkey rates gas above Armenian Genocide bill

PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkey has not broken off talks with Gaz de France within Nabucco consortium which plans to export Caspian gas to Europe, Turkish Energy Minister Hilmi Guler said. Last week Turkish high rank officials said that talks with Gaz de France were stopped over the Armenian Genocide resolution passed by the French Parliament. "Nabucco is a very important program for us and engagement of Gaz de France has not been suspended," Gulen said, RFE/RL reports.



The five-company consortium plans to build a 3,300-kilometre conduit that will carry natural gas from the Middle East and Central Asia to the European Union via Turkey and the Balkans, bypassing Russia. The other partners in the venture are gas companies from Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania. The consortium had been in contact with GDF for some time as part of its efforts to find a sixth partner in the six-billion-dollar project, which is expected to become operational in 2012. The four other partners approved GDF's participation, but Turkey has opposed it because of a French draft law that makes it a criminal offense to deny the Armenian Genocide committed by the Ottoman Turkey during World War I. The bill was adopted by the French National Assembly in October 2006.
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