Bulgarian Ambassador To Russia Says TurkStream Project Important, Open To Talks On Joining

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st November, 2018) Bulgaria considers the TurkStream gas pipeline as well as other similar projects extremely important for all international actors and is open to talks on becoming part of it, Bulgarian Ambassador to Moscow Atanas Krastin told Sputnik on Wednesday.

"There is a lot of work ahead to outline how this project will develop. Bulgaria is, of course, open for these negotiations, because the construction of such large-scale projects is important for all the countries," Krastin said, asked about Bulgaria's desire to join the project.

The TurkStream project envisages the construction of a gas pipeline comprising two legs, each with the capacity to deliver 15.7 billion cubic meters (554 billion cubic feet) of gas per year.

The first leg is set to bring gas across the Black Sea directly to Turkey, while the other will run across Turkey to its western border, transporting natural gas to countries in the south and southeast of Europe.

Moscow joined TurkStream after work on the South Stream gas pipeline, which was set to span across Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary, was halted due to EU-Russian differences in late 2014.