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No official ceremony planned to mark completion of Nord Stream 2 first leg — Kremlin

Peskov said he doubted the completion of pipe-laying was timed to coincide with Putin’s speech at SPIEF

ST. PETERSBURG, June 5. /TASS/. No official ceremony with the participation of Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to mark completion of pipe-laying of the first leg of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is planned so far, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).

"So far, there are no plans of a joint ceremony. I think that when the project is about to be completed, the operator company will raise this issue," Peskov said.

In his words, "more time is needed; a separate opening of the first leg is hardly possible."

"They still need to pump in gas, and pump out water," he continued. "Of course, many adjustments are yet to be made, but it will be a lot easier then laying a pipeline at sea. But it will take more time."

Peskov said he doubted that the completion of pipe-laying was timed to coincide with Putin’s speech at SPIEF.

"This project is too complicated to be timed to coincide with some specific dates," he added.

On Friday, at the plenary session of the SPIEF, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that the pipelaying operation for the first string of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline was successfully completed and the second string would be ready in 1.5-2 months.

Nord Stream 2 is a project to expand the existing Nord Stream gas pipeline connecting Russia and Germany along the bottom of the Baltic Sea, bypassing transit states of Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, and other Eastern European and Baltic countries.

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