Turkey wants to buy more natural gas from Iran, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Friday, adding that Ankara and Tehran has reached an agreement to resolve a dispute on gas prices without arbitration.
Cavusoglu made the comment at a joint news conference with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarifwho was on an official visit to Ankara for bilateral negotiations.
Turkish foreign minister said Turkey is planning to increase the volume of natural gas it is currently purchasing from Iran. Cavusoglu also added that he had discussed pricing issues with Zarif, stressing that Tehran and Ankara should resolve any future disputes over gas prices without arbitration.
Turkey’s imports of natural gas from Iran stand at 30 million cubic meters a day (mcm/d) under a 25-year contract that was signed in 1996. However, the flow of gas has occasionally been disrupted as a result of disputes between both sides over pricing.
In January 2012, Turkey took Iran to the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) court of arbitration in Switzerland after the Islamic Republic rejected Ankara's complaint that the price was too high.
Accordingly, the ICC in February ordered Iran to discount the price of gas by 10-15 percent, backdated to 2011, the media reported.
Iran is Turkey’s second supplier of gas after Russia, providing one-fifth of the country’s consumption.
Iran has also for long been working on a plan to export its natural gas to Europe through Turkey. The plan – that was to be carried out though the Nabucco scheme – was eventually put on hold due to a series of technicalities. Nevertheless, officials in Tehran announced last month that the possibility that gas exports to Europe would return to the agenda exist “if the requited agreements with Europeans countries over the plan are reached”.
Iran’s export of natural gas to Turkey was a key theme in meetings of Iran’s Foreign Minister Zarif with Turkish officials on Friday. Zarif arrived in Ankara earlier on the day to discuss bilateral cooperation and regional issues with Turkish officials. Shortly after meeting Cavusoglu, he met Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.