ANKARA - Energy and Natural Resources Minister Hilmi Guler said on Friday that the projects of Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum (BTE) would be finished on time without any delay.
Responding to questions of journalists during the conference on ''yesterday, today and tomorrow in Azerbaijan'', Guler said that the government attributed great importance to BTC oil pipeline and BTE natural gas pipeline projects and both projects were carried out in line with the programme.
Guler said that the projects met the needs of both Turkey and EU countries, adding that European countries were also interested in these projects and expected them to finish. Guler stated in the conference that BTC would finish in 2005 and BTE would finish in 2006.
When asked what Turkey was doing regarding the oil reserves in Cyprus, Guler said that ''in fact Turkish Petrolleum have studies in the area off southern Mersin province. Foreign and Turkish companies carry out joint studies there. We search for oil also there like we do it in Eastern Black Sea, Anatolia and Thrace regions. But the results of them will become clear after the end of drilling efforts.''
Guler stated that they had important expectations about existence of oil and natural gas in that region, and the studies continued.
When reminded about the news claiming that the U.S. had also desires about that issue, Guler said that ''now I am interested as to whether there is oil and natural gas there or not, but we believe so.''
(Öª) 12.12.2003