Türkiye natural gas hub to become an 'electronic trading platform': Putin

By Burc Eruygur

ISTANBUL (AA) — Russian President Vladimir Putin said a natural gas hub he and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed to work on following talks earlier this year would be set up as an "electronic trading platform."

"I want to make it clear that this is not oil or an oil storage facility, this is gas. Both we and our Turkish friends know this. We are talking about creating an electronic trading platform," Putin told journalists during a press briefing in the city of St. Petersburg late on Saturday.

Putin underlined that the natural gas hub project did not involve the storage of a large volume of gas.

"It's just a convenient place to organize such an electronic trading platform, because Türkiye has become a transit country for Europe," Putin said.

Putin said Türkiye's role as a transit country was increasing and underlined that all countries would seek to ensure their energy security if gas connections were disrupted.

He also touched on future talks with Erdogan, saying they had agreed to hold a phone conversation later.

"We agreed to talk, in my opinion, on Wednesday. We will talk and decide," he said.

He added that while they also agreed to hold in-person talks they had yet to decide on the time and setting. "Either he will come to us, or I will go to him, we'll see," Putin said.

Following a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Istanbul, Erdogan announced earlier this month that Putin might visit Türkiye in August.