Statements by U.S. Officials
CNN Turk Interview with Deputy Assistant Secretary for Europe and Eurasian Affairs Matt Bryza
Nabucco Signing,
Rixos Hotel, Ankara
July 13, 2009
Question: I'm going to start with why the Nabucco Project is so important. And then you know the source country list. Turkey invited Russia to come on with the ceremony but Russia didn't show up.
Bryza: I didn't realize that.
Question: So, do you support the project that Russia has not been involved? And also the Iran position and about the you know that the capacity of the pipeline project. Do you think that the challenges, source country challenges will be get over?
Bryza: We are getting to the real questions. Everybody is so sophisticated now about this project, that's great.
Question: Okay now Mr. Bryza, first of all let's talk about the Nabucco project. Why is this project so important? For Turkey, for Europe and also for United States?
Bryza: Nabucco is one of the key elements in what we call the southern corridor. Which includes Nabucco, includes the Turkey-Greece-Italy pipeline. It also includes smaller pipelines that interconnect Turkey with Greece as we know, Greece with Bulgaria, Bulgaria together with Romania, Romania with Hungary. Step by step we hope to see small pipelines that will compliment this huge pipeline that is Nabucco. To do what? To number one: To help Europe diversify its supplies of natural gas. I think many of the leaders in that room where we just had this wonderful summit meeting didn't want to find themselves in a situation like they were in this January with gas costs. Number two: the goal of Nabucco and this whole southern corridor is to help our friends, the producers of natural gas in Azerbaijan hopefully soon in Iran and then in Turkmenistan maybe as well gain access to Turkey and to Europe as major markets on the basis of market economic principles rather than having to go through transport systems that are monopolized by one company. And then number three why this project is so important is because it really elevates Turkey's strategic importance to Europe as this energy connection. Turkey already has played that role for a long time. I'm so proud of my country's role in helping to develop the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline as well as the south Caucusus gas pipeline. I'm very proud of that and now Turkey is taking yet another big step. Demonstrating how crucial it is to helping Europe by elevating its own prosperity and being strategically safe in terms of energy.
Question: The project had been a big progress after the crisis between the Russia and Ukraine and Nabucco's aim was the break up the Russia's monopoly - How do you see a project that Russia has been involved, because the countries, the partners say that Russia is not out of this project. How do you see a project that Russia has involved?
Bryza: Our goal yes is as other partners have described too is to increase the competitiveness of Europe's market. Which means the more companies that are able to deliver gas to Europe, the safer Europe is because not only is Europe not susceptible to gas cut offs but the market then will function much more efficiently. And European consumers will pay less for gas than they do now when they have to pay a higher price because there is not enough competition between suppliers. The object of what we are developing here, the object is to increase competition. Russia as we were talking about before chose not to attend this ceremony, which I guess implies that it is not ready to consider itself as a participant in the project. At some point who knows? Maybe Russia will decide it will like to be a participant, maybe it will decide that it's major company Gasprom would like to participate like all the other companies as a minority, shareholder, not as a controller, nobody controls Nabucco. It's a partnership. So, if it seems if the Russian company would like to come in as partner but not a controlling share and offer financing and ship its gas, I think that something that the Nabucco partners will consider in the future, but that's up to them . The United States merely supports our allies in wanting to develop this project. How they develop it is up to them.
Question: What about Iran? We know that the U.S. rejects the participation of Iran in this project. Are you at the same point, or?
Bryza: Well the international community pretty strong, as a strong and unified position with regard to how to deal with Iran. And yes there is U.S. law, and U.S. policy that prohibits investments over 20 million dollars in Iran. We've all heard, everybody's heard about President Obama's desire to approach Iran in a new way. He talked about it as an open hand rather than a clenched fist. Now we now find ourselves in a new and a very complicated situation in the case of Iran however. And the international community again expressed this opinion just in the last couple of days about when it expects Iran to comply with the international community's demands to give up its nuclear enrichment program. So, how we deal with Iran in a unified way with all of our international partners is evolving, but leave that aside even if all of those issues were dealt with the fact is that today Iran does not have any gas to put into the Nabucco pipeline. It's not available. And Iran is a very difficult negotiator and a tough economic partner. That's maybe to be admired, they really negotiate in a firm way, but one point I would like to make is that Iranian gas even isn't needed to realize Nabucco. There is plenty of gas in Azerbaijan alone in the ground to realize Nabucco, but to realize the project at the right time there needs to be I think more gas that will be available sooner than all of the volumes in Azerbaijan and so we look to Iraq and we look to Turkmenistan. Hopefully to Turkmenistan as well. Don't forget though that in Azerbaijan there are many new fields of gas that are being explored. I think we are going to see thanks to Nabucco and the Turkey-Greece-Italy Pipeline moving forward. Accelerated gas production in Azerbaijan and just like happened with the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline early on it looked like there wasn't enough oil in Azerbaijan. And at the end of the day Azerbaijan provides all the oil that's needed now to make Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan function.
Question: My last question. Do you think that the pipeline construction will finish within the said period? Do you believe that? In 2014?
Bryza: Well it doesn't matter what I think. I'm not an investor. It's the investors and the countries themselves that have to decide that. I have to prove in fact that their intentions will be realized. What I can say is what's clear from the meeting today is the will is there. The good will is there. Today is important because it resolves the question forever. As to whether or not there is sufficient political will to realize Nabucco, the political will is there and will be seen for everybody in a couple of minutes when the leaders sign this intergovernmental agreement. And the intergovernmental agreement provides the legal framework for the project. And legal frameworks include deadlines. So I can only assume that all the partners will stick with their commitments and realize the project on time.
Question: Thank you very much Mr. Bryza for your comments.
Bryza: Thank you.