Turkey and Israel intend to conclude an agreement for the building of a natural gas pipeline to supply gas to the EU, Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said  at the 22nd World Petroleum Congress in Istanbul, Anadolu reported.

Steinitz noted that they had a fruitful conversation with his Turkish ounterpart  Berat Albayrak.

 "Hopefully Mr. Albayrak will also pay a visit to Israel this year in 2017, which will help us accelerate our attempts to conclude this agreement," he continued. 

Steinitz expressed his hopes to realize the visit in the next few months, adding that the two ministers have not fixed a date yet.

"We decided after four rounds of talks to accelerate our talks and try to conclude the government-to-government umbrella agreement that will enable the construction of Israel-Turkey pipeline before the end of this year. We are making enormous efforts to conclude it," he said.