Turkey is encouraging Russia to join NABUCCO

The Turkish Parliament has endorsed the NABUCCO project by ratifying the law on constructing the pipeline, which the President has now signed into law. Turkey is prepared to involve Russia in implementing the project.

Turkish State Minister Ali Babacan has said that Azerbaijan, a main supplier of natural gas for NABUCCO, does not have enough resources to use for this purpose as of yet and involving Turkmenistan in the project is rather problematic at the moment. Therefore Turkey is considering including Iran, Iraq or Russia as a supplier.

The estimated cost of NABUCCO is USD 8 billion. It is supposed to supply Austria, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and other European countries with Azeri natural gas via Georgia and Turkey as a continuation of the existing Baku-Tbilisi-Erzerum gas pipeline into Europe. So the question arises: if NABUCCO is supposed to provide Europe with an alternative to Russian gas supplies, how does inviting Russia to participate in this project fit the initial design?