FINANCIAL TIMES: Speaking after talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his Turkish counterpart, in Ankara, [President Vladimir] Putin said Russia would abandon the project to bring Russian gas to Bulgaria under the Black Sea, bypassing Ukraine, unless the EU dropped its opposition.
The European Commission has refused to give Gazprom the exemption it would need to operate the pipeline at full capacity, viewing it as a potential further tool for the Kremlin to exert economic control over southern and eastern Europe.
Mr Putin said that Moscow would look instead at developing a gas hub to southern Europe via Turkey, the subject of a memorandum of understanding signed by the two countries on Monday… (more)
