ATHENS, February 27. /TASS/. Greece is considering the passage of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline through its territory, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, chairman of the main Greek opposition party New Democracy, said in an interview with TASS ahead of his two-day visit to Moscow.
In Moscow, Mitsotakis is going to meet with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and Chairman of the State Duma (low house of parliament) Vyacheslav Volodin.
According to the Greek politician, his party supports the strategy of diversifying sources and routes of energy supply as a necessary principle of Europe’s energy security. He also stressed that this policy is in line with the New Democracy course, which wants to turn Greece into an energy hub in South-Eastern Europe.
"Within this framework, and with due regard for the EU regulatory framework, as well as the latest EU decision regarding pipeline regulations, we are exploring the possibility of the TurkStream passage through Greece to other European countries," Mitsotakis said.
During his visit to Moscow on December 7 last year, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras discussed the extension of the TurkStream gas pipeline to Europe.
On February 5, at a press conference in Ankara held after his meeting with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, Tsipras confirmed that Greece would like to expand its energy cooperation with Turkey and participate in the implementation of the TurkStream project.
The TurkStream project includes construction of a gas pipeline under the Black Sea to the European part of Turkey and further to the border with Greece. The length of the sea part of the pipe is expected at around 930 km, the overland part on the Turkish territory - 180 km.
The first line will be intended for the Turkish market, the second - for gas supply to the countries of South and South-Eastern Europe. The capacity of each line reaches 15.75 bln cubic meters of gas per year. First gas supplies are planned for the end of 2019. Gazprom considers Greece, Italy, Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary as potential markets.