EU, Turkey to revitalize energy cooperation: Bozkir

BRUSSELS

A Turkish minister has said Ankara is ready to boost energy cooperation with the European Union amid deteriorating relations with Russia.

"We will establish high-level contacts and revitalize the groups on energy," Turkey’s EU minister and chief negotiator Volkan Bozkir told reporters in Brussels on Thursday.

"The circumstances, which occurred last week, also make it necessary that we use this group to also deal with difficult situations," he added.

The minister was speaking as the fallout from last week’s downing of a Russian warplane over Turkish territory continued.

Bozkir met with European Commissioner for Energy and Climate Action Miguel Arias Canete and European Commissioner for enlargement Johannes Hahn in Brussels on Thursday.

Turkey is ready to invest $125 billion in the energy field until 2030, Bozkir said, without mentioning when chapter 15 on energy would be opened.

His comments come on the same day as Russian officials said negotiations over the multi-billion dollar Turkish Stream pipeline project, which would have carried Russian natural gas to Europe through Turkey, had been suspended.

After the downing of the Russian warplane on Nov. 24, Moscow announced a wide range of sanctions against Turkey.

Among them was the end of a visa-free travel agreement between the two countries and a ban on Turkish food products. Russia has also called on its nationals to boycott Turkey as a tourist destination.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu is to meet with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Thursday during an OSCE summit in the Serbian capital Belgrade, according to Turkish diplomatic sources.

Turkey and the EU are promoting as partners the development of the Southern Gas Corridor order to strengthen their security of supply and they will continue to cooperate to implement the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) project, the European Commission said in a statement in March.

"A regular exchange of information on energy cooperation at the global and regional level would be to the benefit of both sides," the European Commission said in the statement.

"The European Union needs Turkey and Turkey needs the European Union," European Commissioner for enlargement Johannes Hahn said in a joint press conference with Bozkir.

"The better wording of this sentence is: the EU needs Turkey [and] Turkey needs the EU....more than ever," Bozkir added.