ANKARA, Turkey, April 23 (UPI) -- Turkish President Abdullah Gul is considering an invitation to a May 8 summit in Prague on the anticipated Nabucco natural gas pipeline.
The Czech presidency of the European Union called for an informal summit on Nabucco. Europe sees Nabucco as a means toward energy diversity and security. It would travel some 2,051 miles from Central Asia to Turkey and on to European customers.
Ankara has said it was unclear whether Gul would attend the May 8 summit, Today's Zaman reports. Earlier this month, however, Turkey said it was expecting to make decisions on Nabucco sometime in June after conferring with its European partners via a written letter on the project.
Gul plans to attend an energy summit scheduled to begin Friday in Bulgaria, however, to discuss broader regional energy policies and energy security.
The Sofia meeting has the South Stream pipeline to southeastern Europe on its agenda. Though South Stream is backed by Russian gas monopoly Gazprom, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is expected to boycott the meeting in opposition to plans to discuss Nabucco.
Putin said Nabucco would hurt the relationship between Moscow and the European Union as the project sidelines Russia from supplying natural gas to Europe.
