Ankara, Moscow to jointly work on building natural gas hub in Türkiye's Thrace region

By Diyar Guldogan

ANKARA (AA) - Ankara and Moscow will work jointly on building a natural gas hub in Türkiye's Thrace region after the Russian leader's proposal earlier this week, according to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

"For such a distribution center, of course, Thrace is seen as the most important place for this business,” said Erdogan on Thursday, referring to a region in northwestern Türkiye, near the Greek border.

“Together with (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, we instructed our Energy and Natural Resources Ministry and the relevant institution on the Russian side to work together. They will do this work there," Erdogan told reporters on the presidential plane returning from a trip to Kazakhstan.

"Wherever the most appropriate place is, we will hopefully have established this distribution center there. We have a national distribution center, but of course now this will be an international distribution center," Erdogan said.

On the sidelines of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) summit in the Kazakh capital Astana, Erdogan earlier held a closed-door meeting with Putin, who had proposed building a natural gas hub in Türkiye.

Praising Türkiye as "the most reliable partner" for gas deliveries to Europe, Putin said building a hub in Türkiye would allow, among other things, regulating prices, selling gas at reasonable prices, and ruling out "politicization" of the issue.

On the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, Erdogan also told reporters Ankara's mediation between the two countries continues.

"Concerning Türkiye's mediation, the trust Russia and some other countries have in Türkiye remains the same," Erdogan said, adding: "The continuing trust in Türkiye also pleased us."

Türkiye has been in close contact with both Russia and Ukraine since the beginning of the war. Erdogan has repeatedly stressed his wish to bring Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy together at the negotiating table in Türkiye to end the war.