MOSCOW, March 10. /TASS/. Implementation of Turkish Stream project will it make possible to boost gas deliveries to Turkey and increase the country’s transit potential, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday.
"The intergovernmental agreement on the large-scale project of the Turkish Stream gas system construction came into force last month," Putin said.
"Implementation of this project in practice will make possible to scale up natural gas supplies to Turkey and increase its transit potential," he added.
Bilateral cooperation in energy sphere is "genuinely strategic," the Russian president noted. Turkey is ranked second by procurements of gas from Russia. Good prospects are in place to deepen industrial cooperation in metals industry, automotive sector and production of agricultural machinery, Putin added.
Great potential
"Russia and Turkey have a huge potential to develop good neighborly ties, the two countries can not only make up for lost time but also take cooperation to the next level," Putin stressed.
The Russian president emphasized that Moscow and Ankara had restored an intensive political dialogue, the joint group for strategic planning and the mixed inter-governmental commission had resumed their activities. Putin noted that both he and Erdogan strongly supported the boosting of bilateral cooperation and mutually beneficial partnership.
Putin added that Turkey was of Russia’s main economic partners while Russia was one of the key export markets for Turkey.
Russian payment system now in Turkey?
Turkey intends to create the infrastructure to service Russia’s Mir bank cards on its territory:
"An increase in share of national currencies in mutual settlements would facilitate the intensification of bilateral economic relations. We know that Mr. President [Recep Tayyip Erdogan -TASS] is fully supporting this," the Russian leader said.
"Creation of the infrastructure for servicing bank cards of Russia’s Mir payment system will become a specific step in this direction, which we discussed today in a narrow format," Putin said.
Putin also marked good opportunities for the development of humanitarian cooperation between the countries. According to him, holding Russia-Turkey cross-cultural year has been scheduled for 2019.
In 2016, the need for a national payment system emerged after the international system Visa and Mastercard cards stop providing services to several Russian banks that came under Western sanctions. The Russian parliament adopted the law on the National System of Payment Cards(NSPC), which obliges the international payment systems to move their processing to the Russian territory.
In July 2014, NSPC was created as the operator of the Mir payment system. NSPC has been operating in Russia since April 2015. Russia’s Central Bank holds 100% of NSPC.