President Vladimir Putin proposed that Türkiye become a hub for Russian gas, with a new pipeline and an energy exchange.
"If Türkiye and our potential buyers are interested, we could consider building another gas pipeline and creating a gas hub in Türkiye for sale to third countries, especially in Europe," the Russian leader told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during a meeting in Astana, the Interfax news agency reported.
Putin also suggested setting up a gas exchange in Türkiye to determine prices at the talks in the capital of Kazakhstan.
He praised the Turkstream pipeline, which runs through the Black Sea to Türkiye and southern Europe, as the safest route for Russian gas, alluding to blasts that damaged two Baltic pipelines linking Germany and Russia that NATO and the EU have condemned as sabotage.
The Turkstream pipeline was also meant to be blown up, though this did not happen, Putin claimed.
On Wednesday, Putin had described the damage to the Nord Stream pipelines as an "international terrorist attack," suggesting that Washington could have been behind it.
Türkiye is a logical choice for building a distribution point and a gas exchange, as Turkstream is still working reliably, Putin said.
"Today, prices are sky-high and we could calmly regulate them there to a normal market level without any political influence," Putin said, during the meeting held on the sidelines of the Conference on Cooperation and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA).
Ankara is determined to strengthen the Istanbul grain deal and to transport Russian grain and fertilizer to underdeveloped countries, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on meeting.
Erdoğan's remarks came at a bilateral meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the sixth summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in the Kazakh capital Astana. The meeting lasted for one and a half hours.
"We are determined to strengthen and continue the grain exports under the Istanbul agreement and the transfer of Russian grain and fertilizer to less developed countries via Türkiye.
"We may work on determining the name of countries. It is important that we focus on the poor countries rather than developed countries," Erdoğan said.
Türkiye, the UN, Russia, and Ukraine signed an agreement in Istanbul on July 22 to resume grain exports from three Ukrainian Black Sea ports, which paused after the start of the Russia-Ukraine war in February.
"I believe that the steps that Türkiye and Russia will take in this process will disturb certain countries, but they will make underdeveloped countries happy," he added.
