Turkish Hurriyet Daily News (03.12.14) reports that Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said that the 6% reduction in the price of natural gas pledged by Russia is not sufficient, revealing that the relevant parties have directly approached Russian President Vladimir Putin to increase the reduction.
“No one could envisage that Turkey and Russia could make such progress in relations in such a short time span. Our trade volume has increased to $32 billion and during yesterday’s meetings we made constructive decisions for the future. As you know, the decision to decrease the gas prices by 6% was announced by Putin. But after the press conference we told him this reduction is not sufficient. Talks will continue,” Davutoglu said during his parliamentary group meeting on Dec. 2.
Turkish officials have not announced the exact amount of reduction they seek, but according to Russian officials Turkey expects a 15% reduction in gas prices. Turkey is Russia’s second largest natural gas market.
Before Davutoglu spoke on Dec. 2, Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said that talks on the natural gas prices will continue between the two countries’ state companies and energy ministries aiming to reach a final compromise on the issue. Russia and Turkey have already agreed to increase Russia’s volume of natural gas up to 3 billion cubic meters starting from Jan. 1, 2015.
