US pressures Greece to give up the project to construct the Turkish Stream pipeline. The New York Times quoted US State Department Special Envoy for International Energy Affairs Amos Hochstein as saying. Moscow-backed energy project would deliver Russian natural gas to Europe via Turkey and Greece.
In an interview in Athens before meeting with Greece’s Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias, Amos Hochstein said Greece would increase its appeal to Western investors and would help curb the European Union’s dependence on Russian gas supplies, if it declined to play host to a pipeline proposed by the Russian state-controlled energy giant Gazprom. Instead, the US envoy encouraged Greece to embrace the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline that would link Europe to natural gas supplies in Azerbaijan.
Earlier, Greece’s Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis stated that Washington had been exerting pressure on the Greek government making them abandon the Turkish Stream in favor of the Southern Gas Corridor promoted by the US. In early April, Panagiotis Lafazanis met his Russian counterpart and expressed hope that the two countries would reach an accord on the joint participation in the gas pipeline construction.
Greece relies on cheaper gas supplies from Gazprom. Russian oil and gas companies are interested in bidding for the right to develop oilfields on Crete.
