As local information agency BelTA reports, the increase in the gold and foreign exchange reserves was facilitated by the second tranche of the EurAsEC Anticrisis Fund loan to the tune of US$440 million and the transfer of part of the syndicated loan provided to OAO Belaruskali by Sberbank of Russia and the Eurasian Development Bank.

Belarusian gold and foreign exchange reserves rose over the New Year to US$7.9 billion due in part to the US$2.5 billion paid by Russia’s Gazprom for control of pipeline operator Beltransgaz, Reuters reports.

The conditions of a Russia-led rescue loan stipulated that Belarus must sell state-owned assets in order to free up cash. Gas monopoly Gazprom said in November it would buy the 50 percent of Beltransgaz it did not already own for US$2.5 billion.

The country’s central bank National Bank of Belarus (NBB) said reserves had grown as a result of the sale to US$7.915 billion from US$7.355 billion in early December.

Last year, the severe financial crisis devalued the Belarusian ruble and sent inflation spiraling by more than 100 percent.

The monetary policy guidelines are aimed at limiting inflation, while the Belarusian ruble’s exchange rate is to be set by market forces with minimal intervention from the NBB.

The NBB promised that it would carry out only limited interventions for curbing drastic fluctuations of the ruble’s exchange rate.

Earlier, the NBB said gold and foreign exchange reserves are expected to total US$6.1 billion to US$7 billion at the end of 2012.

“Keeping the reserves at a level sufficient for the economic security of Belarus and ensuring timely settlement of foreign and domestic obligations in foreign currency in full are priority tasks of the government and the National Bank,” central bank official said to BelTA.

The NBB said that its base refinance rate would be reduced to 20-23 percent towards the end of 2012.

The fuel supply contract was signed last week between U.S. Defense Logistics Agency and Gazpromneft Aero-Kyrgyzstan.

“The Americans have to be certain that we can deal with that volume of supplies. And maybe then [we] will start delivering more than 50 percent of the base’s needs,” said Tilek Isayev, head of the Gazpromneft-Aero Kyrgyzstan.

Former Soviet Central Asian nation authorities suspect the current supplier, Gibraltar-registered Mina Corp., of links to the family of former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, overthrown last year — allegations it has denied. Mina’s contract as the sole supplier to the base expires in December, but it can bid to retain a piece of the business.

Fuel sales to the air base in this impoverished have been mired in controversy over lack of transparency. A Gibraltar-registered firm is currently the sole supplier of fuel, but that arrangement is terminating in December.

Manas Center provides logistical support for NATO in Afghanistan and is a major transit hub for U.S. troops flying in and out of the region. The company also supplies fuel to civilian aircraft at the international airport where the base is located.

The new supplier is Gazpromneft-Aero Kyrgyzstan, which is 51 percent owned by a subsidiary of Gazprom and 49 percent by Kyrgyzstan’s government.

U.S. Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan Pamela Spratlen told journalists the two sides could sign another contract within 90 days of the initial shipment of fuel that would increase delivery to up to 50 percent of the base’s needs, the Reuters news agency said.

The arrangement could ease concerns about corruption involving fuel supplies to the Manas. The potential for significant revenue also could reduce Moscow’s incentive to seek closure of the U.S. base.

The U.S. Manas air base spends from US$300 million to US$400 million a year on aviation fuel.

“The money coming from fuel supplies to the [Manas] Transit Center will go into Kyrgyzstan’s state budget, and it will be hard to filch it,” Russian Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan Valentin Vlasov said to the Associated Press.

Foreign direct investment in Georgia fell 16 percent in 2010 year on year to US$553 million, official data shows, well below the US$1 billion target already set for last year. Nevertheless, FDI still accounted for 5 percent of gross domestic product in 2010.

The decline in FDI is officially attributed to the ongoing impact of the global recession; however, investors are also cautious due to the political climate and Russia’s military build-up in the breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which slashed foreign investment.

Kobalia said recent improvements in the country’s sovereign ratings outlook should help restore investors’ confidence. Ratings agencies Standard & Poor’s and Fitch both raised their outlook for Georgia to “positive” in March.

Georgia placed a US$500 million 10-year Eurobond last month with a coupon rate of 6.79 percent and tendered to buy back US$416.7 million worth of its outstanding US$500 million 2013 Eurobond via an “any and all” tender ahead of a new issue.

The International Monetary Fund, which forecasts economic growth of 5.5 percent in Georgia this year versus 6.4 percent in 2010, has said the Eurobond issue should help spur greater FDI.

Kobalia highlighted tourism and hydroelectric power among the most attractive sectors for foreign investors. She said Georgia was using only 18 percent of the hydropower that it generates and was exporting the rest to neighboring countries.

“Turkey, our neighbor, has a deficit already so it’s a great investment for companies to build hydropower plants and to transfer electricity to Turkey,” she said.

Georgia was also offering investors a 15-year tax break on investments in two tourism sites in the Black Sea, she said.

Earlier this March, American real estate mogul Donald Trump announced his plan to invest US$250 million in the construction of two 40-storey skyscrapers in the country — the Trump Tower in the capital Tbilisi and the residential Trump Riviera, in the resort town of Batumi.

Meanwhile, Georgian media reports that remittances from migrants back to Georgia now exceed FDI flows. This can be seeing as a troubling fact for the government and for President Mikhail Saakashvili’s high-profile campaign to attract outside investment, Menas Associates Blog speculates.

Annual inflation hit 13.7 percent in February, continuing a trend of rapidly rising prices: year-on-year inflation has climbed almost 1 percent every month since October, and has soared since June 2010 figure of 3.7 percent.

Most concerning for Georgian politicians are the fact that food and soft beverages is the biggest contributor to inflation, making up almost all of the 2.8 percent jump from January’s figures. Taken alone, inflation on these products is running at 28.4 percent. The social and political impact of such a sharp rise in food prices is potentially very serious indeed.

The government responded by distributing one-off food vouchers of around US$17 to poor households. Although these might be effective at alleviating immediate concerns, economists have warned that in the long term these could distort the economy and actually contribute to galloping inflation.

Some observers are skeptical of FDI flows doubling this year, saying that Donald Trump’s expansion into Georgia may not be enough to start a new wave of foreign investment.

Sandwiched between Russian and China, Mongolia is about to lay 3,542 miles of track across the country and to Russia’s Far Eastern sea ports.

Mongolia has grown increasingly dependent on commerce with China since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. More than 75 percent of exports went to PRC in 2009, according to European Union figures.

“Using the Russia route, Mongolia will have better access to a global market rather than just dealing with China,” Chris Weafer, Moscow-based chief strategist at UralSib Financial Corp. said to the Bloomberg. “You need that to maximize the commercial value of its goods. Otherwise China dictates prices.”

The massive infrastructure investment stems from the Mongolian government’s desire to diversify trade and reduce dependence on China.

“The missing link in the Mongolian gold rush now is transportation infrastructure,” said Roland Nash, who helps manage about US$150 million of Russian stocks at Moscow-based hedge fund Verno Investment Management Ltd.

“The key for the Mongolians is to attract investments from as many different countries as possible to lessen their dependence on China.”

When the Dalai Lama visited Mongolia in 2002, China expressed its displeasure by closing the border.

“Who knows, they could do that any time,” Dashbaljir Nemekhbayar, head of the Transportation Ministry’s Finance and Investment Department, told EurasiaNet.

In addition to the desire to build up its own industrial capacity, Mongolia finds Russia to be a more comfortable partner to work with than China, said Alicia Campi, president of the U.S.-Mongolia Advisory Group.

“The Russians, partners since 1949 in Mongolia’s north-south border-to-border sole railway, are a known, basically reliable commodity to Mongolian policymakers and they share Mongolian concern over rapidly increasing Chinese penetration and monopolization of north Asian economic trade,” Campi continued.

The rail improvements could also help Mongolia capitalize on new rare earth taxes and regulations instituted in recent years by China, the world’s dominant rare element producer.

“Modernization of the country’s transportation infrastructure will make Mongolian mining ventures even more attractive to foreign investors,” John Shearer, president and CEO of GTSO, which is currently working to secure the mining rights to four mineral-rich properties in Mongolia, said to the Business Wire.

Mongolia this year is to start building a link from the Tavan Tolgoi coal basin with an existing rail line north to Russia.

“Tavan Tolgoi is ready to invest US$1.5 billion into 1000-kilometer railway line connecting Tavan Tolgoi to Choibalsan via Sainshand industrial complex,” Kh. Battulga, Minister for Road, Transportation Construction and Urban Development said on April 21 to business-mongolia.com. Mongolian Choibalsan city is already connected to the Russian rail network.

US$10 billion industrial complex in southern city of Sainshand to include a copper smelter, oil refinery, power plants and chemical coking facilities to process the output from both the coal and copper-gold mines.

Feasibility study of the rail-line project is expected to be completed in July 2011, according to the Tavan Tolgoi web site.

While the government has said the railroad will be constructed within two years, some experts said it is more likely to take three to four years.

According to the International Monetary Fund, economic growth may surge to 23 percent in 2013, more than twice the forecast expansion in China, as large mining projects begin production.

Mongolia’s benchmark MSE Top 20 Index is the world’s best performer in the past 12 months and its currency, the tugrik, the fifth-biggest gainer against the dollar.

Agriculture and mining each account for about 20 percent of gross domestic product. Aside from coal and copper, the country also holds oil, potash, iron ore and uranium, as well as rare earths used in electronics, wind turbines and smart bombs.

World Bank data says Mongolian rail network comprises 1,815 kilometers of broad gauge track, of which 1,110 kilometers are on the main line linking Russia to China, 238 kilometers are on a separate network in Eastern Mongolia that has its own link to the Russian railway, and the remaining 477 kilometers are branches from the main line.

The Metsamor nuclear power plant is only 20 miles from Armenia’s capital and most populous Yerevan city. Its location in a seismic zone has drawn renewed attention since Japan’s nuclear crisis, NatGeo magazine said in its article “Is Armenia’s Nuclear Plant the World’s Most Dangerous?”

The power plant Metsamor was built in 1979 and closed in 1989 after an earthquake prompted officials to reconsider the safety of the location.

On December 10, 1988, a 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck, killing 25,000 people. Some 60 miles from the epicenter, Metsamor, then with two operating reactors, survived the earthquake without damage, according to Armenian officials and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

In 1996, one reactor resumed operations with Western financial assistance for upgrades. Then in 2003, Russia’s state-run power monopoly, Unified Energy System, took over operations in return for Moscow’s cancellation of a US$40 million debt.

Despite the upgrades to the plant, Antonia Wenisch of the Austrian Institute of Applied Ecology in Vienna said that “the overall safety has not improved sufficiently.”

Armenian officials remain confident that their antiquated nuclear power plant can ride out any Japanese-sized tremor. Of course, they have little choice but to believe in its infallibility, The Moscow Times speculates.

Metsamor provides Armenia with more than 40 percent of its energy consumption, and the country has very few alternative energy resources.

Seven years ago, the European Union’s envoy was quoted as calling the facility “a danger to the entire region,” but Armenia later turned down the EU’s offer of a US$289 million loan to finance Metsamor’s shutdown.

Since the EU failed to persuade Armenia to close the plant, it has focused on providing aid for improving its safety, spending more than US$85 million on such projects as well as for renewable energy, and regional energy cooperation efforts.

Armenia has made efforts to obtain other sources of fuel, such as a natural gas pipeline from its southern neighbor Iran, which opened in 2007. But the amount of fuel to be imported remains in question. The conduit poses potential competition to Russia, a country on which Armenia remains highly reliant, for everything from nuclear fuel to grain.

The 3 million people of landlocked Armenia are unique in their energy dependence on one aging nuclear power reactor.

Azerbaijan to the east and Turkey to the west closed their borders with Armenia, cutting off most routes for oil and natural gas.

Armenia has been forced to store spent fuel on-site for 22 years because of a blockade by its two neighbors.

Japan’s recent nuclear disaster is not seen to have a lasting impact on the global nuclear industry, he said.

“We don’t think it’s a big problem for the industry as a whole. It’s a little bit of set-back in time frame, but as a whole it will go on” Gombo said. “We want green development and nuclear is the number one choice.”

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mongolia with its proven uranium reserves of about 80,000 tons ranks 16th in the world in reserves of uranium resources and 6th in the Asian continent following Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, China, and India.

The country untested reserves may raise the estimate to 1.39 million tons, constituting the largest reserves in the world.

However, currently most of the energy in Mongolia is still generated from coal.

Coal provides 80 percent of its electricity (3 billion kWh in 2009), from less than 1 GWe capacity, and 13 percent of electricity is imported from Russia. Air pollution is a major problem in Ulaanbaatar, from domestic combustion, cars, and power generation.

“We have the ambition to build the capability of nuclear energy in Mongolia, and the ambition to supply nuclear power plants in Northeast Asia with nuclear fuel,” Gombo told reporters on the sidelines of a mining conference in Singapore.

He said the country is seeking investment from around the globe to develop its nuclear energy sector, adding that uranium reserves in the country could rise to above 1 million tons.

“Currently there is not much, but we expect there will be huge investment in Mongolia’s nuclear energy sector, because the super powers are interested,” said Gombo, adding that the United States, Russia and China are competing with each other to get into the country’s nuclear sector.

While Mongolian-Russian joint ventures are currently gaining much attention, sandwiched between China and Russian Mongolia is rightfully diversifying investment partners in its nuclear industry sector to avoid over reliance on any single party.

“The government is quite selective, and is opting to cooperate with the most developed countries in the industry, like the United States, Japan and France,” he said, while adding that it is not like Mongolia doesn’t want to deal with China and Russia, “but we want a balance of interest.”

Meanwhile, Atomredmetzoloto, the mining arm of Russian state-owned nuclear giant Rosatom, says that Russia spent the equivalent of US$600 million on uranium exploration and development in Mongolia to 1995.

In December 2011, Bayarbayasgalan, head of the Nuclear Materials department of the Mongolian Nuclear Energy Agency, told the government-run news agency Montsame that about 20 companies, most of which are international, are now exploring for uranium in Mongolian territory.

According to France’s Areva website, Mongolia and France’s governments signed an agreement to let the company to explore and mine uranium in Mongolia last October.

In September 2009 India also signed a uranium supply and nuclear cooperation agreement with Mongolia. Electricity demand in India is increasing rapidly, and the 830 billion kilowatt hours produced in 2008 was triple the 1990 output, though still represented only some 700 kWh per capita for the year. The country plans to increase its nuclear energy production from 3,667 Mwe to 20,000 Mwe by 2020 and 63,000 Mwe by 2032, which will comprise 25 percent of total electricity production.

The Mongolian government has played a leading role in all nuclear-related efforts. And experts’ considers this trend will continue in the near future.

The new Mongolian Nuclear Energy Law (d/d July 2009), gives government the right to take ownership without payment of not less than 51 percent stake in developments explored with state monies, and not less than 34 percent stake in independently explored sites.

The broadcasting operations are going to close in Serbian, Portuguese, Macedonian, Albanian, and English in Balkan republics Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo.

Only the agency’s web sites, featuring online broadcasts in languages mentioned above will remain in operation.

BBC already has closed its services in Bulgarian, Slovenian and Croatian.

“I can’t advise the British government on how it should spend its money, but this is a sad thing,” Leonid Gozman, co-chairman of the pro-business Right Cause Party, said to The Moscow Times by telephone.

“Now we are able to listen to variety of radio stations, but possibly a day will come when we would again have to turn to foreign radio stations for the truth,” Gozman said.

The Russian Service began broadcasting to the Soviet Union in 1946 and quickly established a reputation with Soviet listeners, in the brief period before the onset of the Cold War.

From 1949 until 1987, the jamming of the signal by the Soviet authorities consumed vast amounts of money and technical expertise. For many years, a significant part of the USSR’s entire radio broadcasting system was devoted to blocking transmissions from abroad.

According to the BBC Europe, despite Soviet jamming, millions were listening to BBC radio broadcastings in Russian by shortwave during the Cold War. The total audience reached 6 million by 1999.

In its heyday, the Russian Service provided a full range of news and current affairs, analysis, musical, medical, scientific, cultural and religious programs. In the past week, the Russian Service has revived some outstanding material from the archives: an interview with Paul McCartney and a ground-breaking hour-long, live studio interview with Margaret Thatcher, answering questions from listeners across the Soviet Union.

Among the service’s most popular programs was music show “Rok-Posevy” (”Rock Seeding”), hosted by iconic rock journalist Seva Novgorodtsev since 1977. He was awarded the Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 2005 Queen’s New Years Honors List for his services to broadcasting.

“Unlike many other ‘enemy voices,’ the BBC dedicated more time to music and culture,” political analyst, and a long-term listener, Stanislav Belkovsky said. For him the first hook was even more exquisite — a show dedicated to 17th-Century English philosopher Francis Bacon.

The closure was not entirely unexpected after the Russian BBC left the FM broadcast band in 2007, switching to middle waves and losing a chunk of its audience in the process.

“I think we have already lost the majority of our audience, when we switched to medium waves. I don’t think so many people will notice the disappearance,” a BBC Russian Service employee told to the Russian business daily Vedomosti.

However, the BBC is planning to concentrate in TV programming in Indian languages like Urdu, Hindi, and in Sub-Saharan Africa in the days to come with additional funding.

The BBC is aiming to cut expenses by 16 percent by 2014, when its current government grant ends. Axing the foreign-language broadcasts is expected to result in net savings of £46 million (US$74 million) – and the loss of some 30 million listeners worldwide, the broadcaster said in a January statement.

According to Amnesty International information, about 300 people gathered in the city’s Fountain Square for a rally held by the Musavat opposition party. Several people were also detained on their way to the event by the police.

“There is no justification for heavy-handed tactics to be used against obviously peaceful protestors,” said Natalia Nozadze, Amnesty International’s Azerbaijan expert who was present at the protest.

Demonstrators chanted “Liberty” and called for the resignation of the president and also called for the release of imprisoned activists.

The opposition activists sent out more than 35,000 invitations for people to support the anti-government group on Facebook and more than 3,000 clicked the “I’m attending” button to support the Friday action.

Observers sound skeptical of a Near-Eastern scenario to be repeated in Baku. But Friday’s protests rattled the authorities enough to cause a wave of arrests that made the regime look both vicious and fearful.

Police said 43 people were detained near the Oil Academy, a major university in central Baku.

Azerbaijan, an energy supplier to Europe and a transit route for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, has been ruled by one family for nearly two decades since Soviet veteran Heidar Aliyev came to power in 1993. He was succeeded by his son Ilham in 2003.

The removal of autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt is being felt in other Central Asian countries as well.

Run by an aging tyrant Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan is nervous too.

State media in Uzbekistan, the only media permitted in the country, has been attacking both Muslim extremists and Western “satanic” rock and roll. This kind of music is created by “evil forces” and is “approaching as dark clouds over the heads of Uzbek youth,” the Radio Free Europe quoted local media as saying.

Meanwhile, in a sign of both corruption and anxiety, last year Uzbeks became the second-fastest growing nationality purchasing luxury residential properties in London. The Moscow Times reports average sale amounts to US$3.3 million.

While Russia has benefited from the turmoil in the Arab world due to the surge in the price of oil, China is worried about its own internal tensions in Tibet and Islamic Turkic-speaking Xinjiang, and at the same time China depends on Central Asia for a considerable portion of its energy needs.

China buys a lot of natural gas from Turkmenistan. Lately, China has been turning to neighboring Kazakhstan for more of its energy needs — 40 percent of its uranium, for example. China National Petroleum Corp. is developing gas deposits in western Kazakhstan for direct export to China via a pipeline under construction.

“But the problem is that a good percentage of energy shipments over land have to enter China via Xinjiang, which can easily become unsafe if disturbances break out,” Richard Lourie, the author of Autobiography of Joseph Stalin, said to The Moscow Times.

The new amendment to the Latvian Law on Immigration came into force in July, 1, and allows foreign investors and their family members including those from non-EU countries to receive a 5-year residence permit in Latvia along with the right to travel in the Schengen area freely, if they purchase Latvian property of at least 70,000 euros (US$95,000) in value, or invest in a business.

“The meaning of the amendments is to encourage investment in Latvia, to attract investors. We wanted to make sure that people who in one form or another contribute to the economic development of our country have more opportunities to obtain a residence permit,” Boris Tsilevich, deputy of the Saeima (Parliament) of Latvia explained to local press.

The volume of investment in one of Latvia’s companies has to be at least 36,000 euros. The minimum amount of paid corporate taxes has to amount to 28,000 euros per year.

Although the law does not give investors the right to work anywhere within the European Union, they can still enjoy the freedom of movement within all 25 EU countries in the Schengen zone.

Before the amendments, the foreigner could actually get a temporary residence permit in three cases: if he/she learns in Latvia, running (in which case the employer had to justify why he needs a foreign worker), and for family reunification purposes.

Since the law was introduced in July, it has already given the property market a boost. “In essence the whole initiative restarted the real estate market in Latvia,” apartment building owner Kristaps Kristopans said to the BBC.

“One year ago it was completely dead. No transactions. Nothing. And now a lot has changed. Sales are picking up nicely.” According to him, almost all his buyers are Russians who have been attracted by the Latvian residency permit offer.

According to Latvia’s immigration authorities, more than 100 foreigners have already applied for the rights after purchasing property or investing in business in Latvia — all of them from the former Soviet Union.

Robert Zile, a Latvian member of the European Parliament, agrees with the opponents of the new law and says the influx of Russian investments will increase Moscow’s influence in the country.

Along with other protesters, members of the Latvian National Party think the incentive to foreign buyers will inevitably increase prices, making real estate unaffordable for locals.

“The government is trying to sell our country. They do not bother to think how to bring back Latvians who left the country,” said Hardis Paradnieks, one of those opposed to the new law.

In response to fears, the government says that all applicants are thoroughly checked out before being awarded residency rights, and forbids cash payments to prevent money laundering.

In addition to their contribution to Latvia’s economy, foreign investors as well as other categories of residence seekers must pass an examination on Latvian language. “Actually it is the exam to the lowest category, i.e. candidate for permanent residence must speak the language to a bare minimum,” said Tsilevich.

Meanwhile, the local banks are offering the useful assistance to their new customers, who’ve been provided the possibility to conclude deposit placement agreement within one day without requiring coming in to Riga.

“Given the domestic consumption in the west of the country and gas supplies from there to Iran, we will have 40 billion cubic meters of gas annually for export, so that European countries do not have to worry,” Turkmenistan’s Deputy PM Baymurad Khodzhamukhamedov said at the Oil and Gas Turkmenistan-2010 Forum in Ashgabat.

This amount is larger than the projected capacity of 31 billion cubic meters of gas annually which Nabucco is supposed to transfer from the Middle East, the Caucasus, and the Caspian Region through Turkey into Bulgaria and the rest of the European Union.

Nabucco is expected to cost about US$11 billion and come online with about 15 billion cubic meters of gas by the end of 2014, and would have to cross a disputed border between Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan – a conflict which has held up progress on Nabucco for years.

Khodzhamukhamedov pledged there would be an agreement on constructing a trans-Caspian pipeline along the bottom of the sea to transport Turkmen gas across the Caspian to Azerbaijan where it would be fed into pipelines linking up with the Nabucco pipeline.

In his words, a pipeline from gas fields in Eastern Turkmenistan to the Caspian Sea was already under construction.

Turkmenistan is seeking to diversify exports from its traditional market, Russia, and has already boosted supplies to China and Iran.

It could potentially become a major supplier of gas to the European Union-backed Nabucco project to supply the fuel to European markets.

At the same time experts consider that in reality it will be very difficult to bypass Russia and Iran, two actual major gas players of the region.

“Russia and Iran want to undermine the investment case for the Nabucco pipeline and block Turkmenistan from selling gas to it,” ING bank’s energy analyst Igor Kurinnyy said to The Moscow Times.

The race between Nabucco and its rival, Russian-sponsored project South Stream, appears to be tightening after last week Bulgaria and Russia signed a key deal for the construction of the South Stream section on Bulgarian soil.

According to Sofia news agency novinite.com, Bulgaria, which is a crucial participant in both projects, has lent support for both Nabucco and South Stream.

“Europe is the world’s biggest spender on energy imports. Turkmenistan is ideally placed to catch a piece of the action,” said Wolfgang Peters, head of supplies for Caspian, Central Asia and Russia for RWE Supply & Trading.

“The question about building a pipeline under the sea is very difficult because it is not just economics involved. There is also ecological safety,” said Alexander Medikov, a maritime lawyer for Jurinflot.

“The decision to build a pipeline should be agreed upon by all parts, or else it could end quite badly. Iran, whose Caspian sector borders on the Azeri and Turkmen waters in the south, would suffer greatly from an accident there.”

Turkmenistan has not formally committed yet to any supplies for Nabucco even though its officials have mentioned the 3,300 kilometer-long pipeline as part of the country’s scheme to diversify its markets.

Still, today’s announcement marks a big step forward to the EU backed pipeline.