KIEV (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th July, 2020) The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday welcomed Washington's plan to remove sanction exemption from the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which would pave the way for tougher restrictions on the project.
Earlier in the day, US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said in a press release that the United States was updating public guidance to add the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and the second line of the Turk Stream 2 sanctions under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. The projects were exempt from the law, because they were started before the legislation went into effect.
"We welcome further US measures to halt Russia-driven Nord Stream 2 project whose completion would pose a major threat to Europe's solidarity," the ministry tweeted.
The ministry added that as "a reliable transit partner", Kiev counted on close cooperation with the US and the EU to strengthen the region's energy security in their "common interests."
The Nord Stream 2 project aims at laying a 745-mile-long twin pipeline that will carry up to 55 billion cubic meters (1.942 trillion cubic feet) of gas per year from Russia to Germany, passing through the territorial waters or exclusive economic zones of Denmark, Finland, Germany, Russia and Sweden.
Ukraine, which before the diversification of the Russian-EU pipeline network enjoyed exclusive rights and privileges of the key transit country, is one of the fiercest opponents of the project.
On December 20, US President Donald Trump signed the 2020 defense budget, which included sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 project, forcing Allseas, a Swiss company responsible for laying down the pipes, to withdraw from the project with just 100 miles left to lay.
In early June, US senators introduced a bipartisan bill that would tighten sanctions on Nord Stream 2 to potentially hit numerous European companies, banks and governmental organizations that work with the project. According to media reports, Germany is putting together a set of countermeasures to mobilize a coordinated EU-wide response.
