ANKARA - Turkey's energy minister said Tuesday that political tensions with France were taking a toll on economic ties after Ankara objected to French participation in a major international pipeline project.
"Decisions in major projects and tenders should be made on the basis not only of technical and commercial considerations but also political ones," Energy Minister Hulmi Guler said after talks with French Junior Trade Minister Herve Novelli.
"This is how it happens all over the world and Turkey is not an exception," he said in an Anatolia news agency report.
Novelli Monday blamed Turkish political interference for Gaz de France's (GDF) failure to become a partner in the European Union's Nabucco pipeline project.
Source close to the project have said that Turkey vetoed GDF's participation in retaliation for the French parliament's recognition as genocide of the World War I massacres of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire, Turkey's predecessor.
France's objections to Turkey's bid to join the EU have further poisoned ties.
The Nabucco pipeline is a five-billion-euro (7.4-billion-dollar) venture to feed gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe from 2012 at the earliest.
German power giant RWE was named earlier this month as the sixth partner in the project, at the expense of GDF. The other partners are OMV of Austria, MOL of Hungary, Transgaz of Romania, Bulgargaz of Bulgaria and Botas of Turkey.
Novelli said he and Guler discussed Turkey's energy projects, primarily plans to build the country's first nuclear power plant, and asserted a French desire to participate in them.
"We must not remain stuck in ups and downs in this or that field. We must look to the future," Anatolia quoted Novelli as saying.
French nuclear giant Areva has already said it is interested in a tender for the construction of the nuclear power plant, expected to be announced soon.
su/bmm
02/19/2008 16:55 GMT