ANKARA, September 15. /TASS/. Turkey and Russia continue negotiations on the creation of a gas hub in the republic suggested by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar told a briefing.

"Since they offered this gas trading platform to us there have been an earthquake and elections. So there was something of a pause period, though now we are negotiating again. If we want to receive more gas, if we want to involve more players in the game, a new exchange may be probably more significant. We are not against creating an additional platform for gas trading. However, if we have an operating gas trading platform now we don’t have to wait another year to start this trading operation," he said.

On September 11, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the project on a gas hub in Thrace remained Ankara’s priority. The country’s energy ministry and other involved agencies have received instructions to continue the work on that issue. Apart from a hub, Ankara plans to create a commodity exchange in Istanbul for trade in energy resources, metals, mineral resources where the market price will be formed.

In October 2022, Putin proposed establishing such a hub in Turkey to where the lost gas transit flows through the Nord Stream pipeline could be redirected. Turkey has said that almost everything is ready to start the project in terms of infrastructure, but that legislative amendments are needed.