Turkey does not intend to stop purchasing natural gas from Russia at this stage, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Thursday, TASS reports.
"The energy issue will be discussed by energy ministers [of Turkey and Israel]. We have said that if Israel reaches gas volumes for export to Europe Turkey will become the only economic route [to implement it]. We, Turkey, have no problems and so far, no decision has been made not to purchase gas from Russia from the viewpoint of energy security," the Sabah newspaper quoted Foreign Minister as saying.
Earlier, Turkish officials repeatedly stated inability to reject gas supplies from Russia.
The Russian President said on February 24 that in response to a request by the heads of the Donbass republics he had made a decision to carry out a special military operation in Ukraine, stressing that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories. Western countries responded to the actions of the Russian authorities by slapping sanctions against physical and legal entities.
In response to such actions Vladimir Putin requested moving payments for gas supplies to unfriendly countries to rubles, saying that Moscow would refuse accepting payments on contracts in discredited currencies, including dollars and euros. He also tasked the government with giving Gazprom an instruction on amending present contracts.
