Turkey will this week be urged to give more support to the proposed Nabucco natural gas pipeline from Azerbaijan and the Caspian, the Financial Times said Monday.
Jozias van Aartsen, the European Union's coordinator for natural gas projects in southern Europe is to press Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to tackle some of the obstacles facing the plan on a visit to Ankara Thursday, the newspaper reports.
"If they are seeking a relationship with the E.U., it is one of the ways to make really clear that they do want a future relationship," van Aartsen told the FT in an interview during the weekend.
Turkey has said it's committed to the Nabucco project, but has failed to agree a pricing mechanism for using the pipeline and is resisting Gaz de France (1020848.FR) from joining the Nabucco consortium.
The European Commission is expected Monday to grant regulatory approval to Nabucco.