LNG

Sept 26 (LNGJ) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and his Azerbaijan counterpart Ilham Aliyev have attended a ground-breaking ceremony for a new natural gas pipeline that will run from Turkey’s eastern province of Igdir to Sederek in western Azerbaijan. “The Igdir-Nakhchevan gas pipeline project we have launched will further strengthen our cooperation with Azerbaijan in the energy sector and will also contribute to the supply of gas to Europe,” Erdogan said.

   Analysts note that after Azerbaijan’s military offensive in the past week regained control of the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenians, another dispute is looming with Armenia over the territory of Nakhchevan where the new pipeline will run. Like Nagorno-Karabakh, where the Armenian population has been isolated in their enclave from the country of Armenia, the Nakhchevan autonomous region of Azerbaijan borders Armenia on two sides and is 450 kilometres (280 miles) west of the Azerbaijan capital Baku.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech that Turkey, an LNG importer, was continuing to prepare for the creation of a natural gas hub for Russian pipeline gas on its territory and a road map was being drawn up and aimed at supplying the European Union.