Turkey reaffirmed its strong political will for developing the Nabucco project, President Abdullah Gul told at a joint press conference with his Austrian counterpart Heinz Fischer.

Fischer not honest on PKK - 20 / 05 / 2008 16:54

Turkish President Abdullah Gul said Turkey linked the east and south energy corridors to Europe and was a country that would ensure energy safety for Europe.

Fischer said the Nabucco Project was on the agenda of the talks, and added Gul expressed his support for such a project.   

The Nabucco project backed by the European Union would run through Turkey and southeastern Europe to carry gas from the Middle East and Central Asia to Europe, bypassing Russia.

The 3,300-kilometer (2,050-mile) long Nabucco pipeline, with a planned maximum capacity of 31 billion cubic meters per year, is slated for construction in 2010 and is aimed at reducing the bloc’s dependence on Russian supplies. The project is estimated to cost around 4.6 billion euros ($5.8 billion).

The Austrian president said the fight against terrorism was another issue discussed during the meeting. He said Austria found terrorism unacceptable and believed that it should be fought strongly.

Austria last year detained and quickly released the PKK operative, Riza Altun and allowed him to board a plane for northern Iraq, despite the fact that he had fake documents and faced charges in France and an extradition request from Turkey.

Fischer also said Austria had a fair, constructive, honest and open-minded stance towards the Turkey's European Union (EU) accession process. He said, when the time comes for Turkey's membership, it should be checked whether the country has met the requirements in the latest period.

Fischer said Turkey's negotiation process was described as "open-ended" due to such reason.

He added efforts of both Turkish and Greek Cypriot leaders for the reunification of the divided island strengthened hopes for the future

Gul said Turkey, which has completed the EU negotiation process successfully, would augment the European cake, adding Turkey would take a share from the cake of the day it became a member, not today's.

"Every one should guess that a Turkey, which has completed the EU negotiation process successfully, would be a very different from the Turkey of today," he added.

He said Turkey was the sixth largest economy of Europe and there were great investment opportunities in Turkey.

"All these would be reflected to the Austrian people (if Turkey became a member of the EU)," Gul said when commenting on a survey in Austria that showed support to Turkey's EU membership around just 5 percent.

The EU opened entry talks with Turkey in 2005, but there has been little progress amid disagreements over Cyprus and opposition from France and other EU countries, including Austria.