"Turkey cannot ditch the EU or Russia even if it wanted to. Neither is it going to put all its eggs in one basket. Turkey will not cave in and fall into the trap of the West, which is trying to blame and bill us for its soured ties with Russia," said Yasin Aktay, deputy chairman of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Turkey is on its way to becoming a crucial link in the chain of Russian gas deliveries to Europe. The republic is Russia's second largest gas buyer, and the partners are now mulling a plan to create a gas hub on the Turkish-Greek border, making Europe dependent on Ankara for its supplies of Russian gas.
"Indeed, the new project will make the EU dependent on Turkey," Aktay confirmed, saying "Europe should not fear this". "It's not like we must always depend on it, now it is [Europe's] turn to depend on us," he added.
This comes as EU Energy Union Commissioner Maros Sefcovic met with energy ministers of Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovenia, Austria, Croatia, Italy, Greece, and Romania — the would-be transit countries for Russian gas deliveries via South Stream — to debate the situation around the pipeline project, after Russian President Putin had announced that Russia would abandon the project during his one-day trip to Ankara last week.
Moscow’s surprise decision to drop the project came as a bolt from the blue for the European Union, with Bulgaria accusing Brussels of drawing it into EU’s power play with Moscow.
On Tuesday, the top EU diplomat Federica Mogherini went to Turkey to meet with officials in the Turkish capital where she spoke of Turkey's strategic importance to Brussels and urged to "step up engagement". Turkey has been seeking EU membership since 2005.
