Turkish energy minister calls partnership with Azerbaijan strategic

Turkish Minister for Energy and Natural Resources Taner Yildiz said that Azerbaijan is a strategic economic partner of Turkey, Trend reports.

The minister said that trade turnover between the two states had reached $3.5 billion and will increase to $5 billion in the future.

Azerbaijan and Turkey signed an intergovernmental deal on realization of the Trans-Anatolia Gas Pipeline project (TANAP) on June 26.

Azerbaijan and Turkey signed a memorandum of understanding in December 2011 to build a gas pipeline to transport gas from Shah Deniz to Europe through Turkey. 20% of share in the project belongs to Botas (Turkey) and 80% to SOCAR (Azerbaijan). The pipeline will have a capacity of 16 billion cubic meters of gas annually. 6 billion cubic meters will be transported to Turkey, the rest to Europe.