Turkmenistan is seriously concerned about the statement of Dmitry Birichevsky, Director of the Department of Economic Cooperation of the Russian Foreign Ministry, who allowed the expansion of the gas union of the Russian Federation with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, Turkmengas Deputy Chairman Myrad Archaev said.

On August 11, a number of mass media disseminated a statement by the Director of the Department of Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Dmitry Birichevsky regarding the so-called "tripartite gas alliance" with the participation of Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. According to him, Russia does not rule out the possibility of expanding "trilateral cooperation" and knows "that other states are also showing interest in it."

“Mr. Birichevsky's statement raises at least a few questions. What “opportunities for expansion” are we talking about, what “other states” are showing interest in them, what, in principle, is behind the “trilateral cooperation” in the gas sector? The streamlined language used by the Russian diplomat does not provide answers to them. Moreover, complete clarity is required here, since the interests of other states, including Turkmenistan, are affected,” Myrad Archaev noted.

He recalled that Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and China have been cooperating for a long time on the transportation of natural gas from Central Asia to the People's Republic of China, with clearly agreed volumes, terms, economic and technical parameters.
“There are no sources of gas from other countries to fill the pipeline, and the existing scheme for distributing gas volumes supplied to China does not include plans to expand the number of participants in the Turkmenistan-China gas pipeline project,” Archaev said.