Negotiations on gas between Ankara and Baku are about to finish

Azerbaijan and Turkey are close to signing a gas transit agreement."Azeri and Turkish experts have made great progress in negotiating an
agreement on gas transit", said the head of the press service of the
Turkish Energy Ministry, Kerem Eskigün, 1news.az reports.

"We came close to signing a transit agreement, but there are still
some details to be discussed. We will announce later when exactly we
will sign the agreement", he said.

"We do not know where the agreement will be signed, in Ankara or inBaku. But I can say that the negotiations are close to ending", he
added.

It should be recalled that the main problem with the negotiations was
that Azerbaijan and Turkey could not came to an agreement on the price
of gas bought by Turkey from Azerbaijan, as well as the conditions of
gas transit from Turkey to Europe. The negotiations have lasted over
18 months.

On April 24th, Rovnag Abdullayev, the head of the state gas and oilcompany of Azerbaijan, announced that Turkey and Azerbaijan were close
to signing an agreement.

According to the latter, Turkey will get 6.6 billion cubic meters of
gas from 'Shahdeniz' in the framework of the first stage of production
of this natural gas field.

Currently, Azerbaijan exports 3.75 billion cubic meters of gas to Turkey.