Turkey announces agreement with Russia to defer gas payment

Turkish Energy Minister Fatih Donmez said that the country had agreed with Gazprom to defer part of payments for natural gas supplied to it.

“Last year we held talks with Gazprom and reached an agreement due to the fact that gas prices jumped sharply and unpredictably. This was done in coordination with our Ministry of Finance. This practice has been in the past in our trade relations, and now we have proposed to revise payments,” Donmez said (quote according to TASS).

The minister added that “relations with Russia are developing at the highest level, not only in the field of natural gas, but also in the field of nuclear energy.”

October 2022 Ankara applied to Gazprom with a request to defer payments for gas. Then the Minister of Treasury and Finance of the Republic, Nureddin Nebati, in an interview with the Financial Times, said that Turkey was also seeking gas discounts from Russia, and noted that Moscow’s concessions would ease pressure on the Turkish lira and supported President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the elections to be held in middle of May.

Back in mid-September, Bloomberg, citing a Turkish official wrotethat at a meeting in Samarkand, Erdogan intends to ask Russian President Vladimir Putin for a gas discount of 25%. It was noted that the Turkish President would also insist on paying part of the bills in Turkish lira.

At the same time, in the summer of the same year, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak informedthat Russia and Türkiye agreed on partial payment for deliveries in rubles. At a meeting with Erdogan in Samarkand, Putin said the leaders had agreed to pay for 25% of Russian gas supplies in rubles.