The Energy Minister of Turkey spoke about Ankara’s energy plans, Alparslan Bayraktarin an interview with the Sabah newspaper, as broadcast from Istanbul by the correspondent of SKAI, Manolis Kostidis.

“In the near future, with a new perspective regarding the Mediterranean Sea, God willing we will proceed to identify new exploration sites and then enter the activities. But as I said, the priority is the production of the existing potential and as a result the reflection of to our citizens and ensuring the supply of supplies. And with that, at the same time, new discoveries should be made either in the Black Sea or in the Mediterranean” said the Turkish Minister of Energy.

Journalist: The Aegean? And the Aegean is like the Mediterranean?

Bairaktar: That is, the Aegean… Looking at the Mediterranean as a perspective, the perspective of the Mediterranean seems to be higher… The perspective of the Black Sea seems to be higher. Therefore, here we are prioritizing, and at the moment this prioritization, as you mentioned above, is in the order: Sakarya, Black Sea, and Mediterranean. Actually, we could say: Different geographical areas, different countries and other parts of the world.

Journalist: Yes, yes. Are there plans for other countries like these two countries? For example, you said about Libya. But you didn’t go into detail. Are there or will there be agreements and work in Libya or other countries as in the case of Niger and Somalia?

Bairaktar: Now, indeed one of the most important countries is Libya because of its very high potential. We are interested in oil and gas projects both offshore and onshore in Libya. There are areas where we are close to agreement, but at the moment there is no area where I can say we have signed an agreement, but there could be developments in these areas. Apart from that, of course, Iraq is very important to us. We have both neighborhood and trade relations with Iraq, which go back many years. As I mentioned before, we have 3 deposits in Basra and we have production there. But Iraq’s potential is very high in both natural gas and oil.

As you know, there is a road development plan. We say that this road development project can actually be turned into an energy highway project and can include that as well.

Journalist: Mr. Minister, we talked all about natural gas, oil, etc., but one of Turkey’s most important goals in the energy sector is nuclear energy. When we say nuclear power, in one of them the construction work is going on. But three major projects were mentioned. What is the latest status on this matter? Could you share details?

Bairaktar: Now, it’s 2. Sinop is one of the sites we’ve identified as a nuclear site that we’re currently working on, in addition to Akkuyu in Mersin. We are thinking about another large-scale power plant in Thrace. Therefore, our negotiations with various countries and companies of various countries are going on in this regard. Now the public knows these things intimately. Of course, one of them is Rosatom and the Russian Federation which is very interested because of the experience and work in Akkuyu. Since they have a serious team there. They will definitely want to leverage the synergy of this team on a different project in Turkey. In this sense, we are in discussions with them. But South Korea is still interested in Turkey’s nuclear sector. At the Astana Summit, our President met with Chinese President Xi Jinping, so they are also interested in this issue. These negotiations are ongoing. Of course, we try to complete them as soon as possible. Within this year or next, we should finalize these agreements and move into the next phases of production and construction. In any case, these are projects that, due to their nature, require a very long period of time and the licensing procedures are time-consuming. However, we want to at least complete the legal procedures and agreements and then proceed with the projects.