On Tuesday Turkey and Azerbaijan signed an agreement in Istanbul on the $7 billion worth joint project of constructing a transatlantic gas pipeline (TANAR). The Turkish side already announced TANAR to be a key project in the European policy of diversification of energy supplies. Russian Expert Victoria Gimadi spoke about the perspectives of the pipeline in the interview with Armenian News-NEWS.am.

Can the new gas pipeline become an alternative for the Nabucco project which was talked about earlier?

It would be wrong to say that TANAR will be an alternative for Nabucco because the later has more global purposes.

Many experts pointed out the failure of Nabucco regarding to the fact that there is nothing to fill the pipeline with. Do you agree with that argument and if yes what can TANAR be filled with?

The preliminary design of Nacucco really encountered the issue of filling. The TANAR project on the other hand has a reserve base.

Practically Turkey and Azerbaijan aim to offer Europe a mechanism of partially refusing gas from Russia. Russia will not like it. What do you think how will Moscow react?

It is noteworthy that the implementation of the project depends on the potential demand for gas in Europe. If the demand for gas in Europe grows in the future to than the additional 16 billion cubic meters supplied by Azerbaijan cannot radically change the position of Russia in the market.