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Former Turkish FM Yakis on Black Sea, crisis in Georgia

ATHENS, Nov 14. (ANA/MPA). Turkish National Assembly European Harmonisation Committee President and former Turkish foreign minister Yasar Yakis said in an address at a downtown Athens hotel on Thursday on the theme of “The Black Sea and the crisis in Georgia” that the existing challenges and dangers in the Black Sea region have been aggravated by the crisis in Georgia.

Focusing on Russia’s role in the crisis in Georgia, Yakis said that “before, we were not aware that the meanings of ‘back yard’ and ‘overseas proximity’ could be translated into specific action. We now know that they mean what they say.”

He believes that, on the one hand, due to the emergence once again of Russia as a powerful force under Vladimir Putin and thanks to the increase of oil and natural gas prices and, on the other, due to the deployment of elements of the American anti-missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic, Russia was seeking an opportunity to proceed with a display of power. And this golden opportunity was given to it with the intervention of the Georgian forces in Southern Ossetia, Yakis added.

The promotion or not of the energy cooperation agreement between the European Union and Russia, for whose negotiations Brussels decided to go ahead recently, would play no role in Moscow’s stance in the crisis, according to Yakis.

“Russia would be a claimant with or without the energy cooperation agreement with the EU. In no equation in the region, either for the Black Sea or also for the EU, can Russia be ignored. Russia is destined to be a claimant in all cases. It will continue to display a claiming policy in every case that will arise,” he said.

Lastly, Yakis stressed that the main reason that the programme for the construction of the “Nabucco” pipeline, which is destined to provide Europe with natural gas, sidestepping Russia, is at a very primary stage, is that the initial precondition is lacking, namely the locating of deposits having adequate deposits to supply a pipeline with the transportation capacity of “Nabucco.”

“Only Iran can supply a pipeline such as ‘Nabucco’. At this stage, ‘Nabucco’ is obscure,” Yakis pointed out.

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