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Turkey–Greece pipeline finally opens

By M.Alkhazishvili


Wednesday, November 21


(Translated by Diana Dundua)

The natural gas pipeline connecting the gas grids of Turkey and Greece officially opened on November 18.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Greek counterpart Costas Karamanlis, as well as Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, were among the officials attending the opening ceremony in the Turkish city of Edirne, close to the Greek border, according to the Regnum news agency.

The official agreement to build the pipeline was signed between the Turkish and Greek governments in March 2002. Construction was completed in September.

The 296-kilometer-long pipeline will have an initial capacity of 7 billion cubic meters of gas per year, which is scheduled to increase to 11 billion by 2012.