TASS source confirmed the postponement of the gas hub summit in Turkey to March 22

The data on the postponement of the Istanbul Gas Summit from February 14-15 to March 22 is correct. About this TASS informed source at the Turkish Ministry of Energy.

“Yes, the information that this summit is being postponed to March 22 is correct,” the source said.

Earlier, the Turkish newspaper Sözcü, citing Reuters reportedthat the gas hub summit was postponed to March 22 due to an earthquake in southeast Turkey. On the eve of February 9, Interfax, citing several sources, are familiar with the situation wrotethat Turkey postponed the summit tentatively to March 21-22. According to one of the interlocutors, the transfer is associated with an earthquake.

January 30 Minister of Energy and Natural Resources of Turkey Fatih Donmez informedthat the country will hold the Istanbul Gas Summit on February 14-15.

A day earlier, Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov declaredthat the timing of the gas hub project in Turkey may be slightly shifted due to the earthquake that occurred on February 6, but this will not affect the plans of the parties. Eliminating the consequences of the natural disaster is now a priority for Ankara, and this is treated with understanding in Moscow, Peskov added. He also expressed confidence that Turkey will cope with this disaster.

On December 28, 2022, the head of Gazprom, Alexei Miller, said that Moscow and Ankara had begun work out implementation of a project to create a gas hub in Turkey. According to him, the Russian-Turkish project will ensure transparent and fair pricing in the natural gas market.

Russian President Vladimir Putin came up with the idea of ​​creating a new hub for Russian gas supplies last October, and in the same month, his colleague Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the agreements reached with Putin on the creation of an international gas hub in the country. Later it became known that the gas distribution center within the framework of the hub project would be located in Thrace – in the north-west of the republic. At the same time, Turkey intends to start operating the gas hub within a year, reported at the end of January, the Ministry of Energy of the country.

The strongest earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 points in the south-east of Turkey and northern Syria with an epicenter near the city of Gaziantep occurred early in the morning on February 6. The second strongest was the 7.6 magnitude shock that followed later in the province of Kahramanmarash. WHO spokesman Adelheid Marchang said at a press conference in Geneva that 23 million people could have been affected by the earthquake in the two countries.