Bulgaria, Greece and Russia Sign Agreement on Trans-Balkan pipeline

[NNN0LHI]

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBRIFO1G7E.html

SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) - Bulgaria, Greece and Russia signed a 522 million euros ($677 million) agreement Tuesday for the construction of a trans-Balkan pipeline that will bypass Turkey's busy Bosporus strait.

The deal was signed by the development ministers of Bulgaria and Greece, Valentin Tserovski and Dimitris Sioufas, and Russian Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko.

Under the long-delayed deal, a 177-mile pipeline will be completed by the end of 2007 to link Bulgaria's port of Burgas to Greece's Alexandroupolis on the Aegean Sea. Initial talks on building the pipeline began in 1993 but were delayed because of disagreements over its cost, ownership and feasibility.

Russia exports about a third of its oil production through the Black Sea and the pipeline will allow it to bypass the crowded and dangerous Bosporus in Turkey, minimizing delays and potential environmental disasters.

more

[peacetalksforall]

1. Is this the pipeline that partly motivated the U.S. to take Iraq?

It was considered harmful to the U.S. unless we had our own line deals?

[Colorado Blue]

2. No. The one we are perhaps interested in constructing

would run from Turkmenistan in Central Asia, terminating either in the Mediterranean or running southward into India.

Either way it would be an ambitious project. But Turkmenistan is loaded with oil, politically less volatile than Middle Eastern oil.

This is why, apart from chasing Bin Ladin around, Afghanistan is strategic. You can see the reason, its location. It is important to stabilize this area before any major construction, which would have to involve many nations, could be undertaken. Also, a pipeline running through a war zone wouldn't be a good idea, as we can see from Iraq, alas.

Unfortunately for Afghanistan, it is always in trouble, sort of like the Near East on the Mediterranean - Afghanistan's location is on the Silk Road, a bridge between worlds.

Also, it borders Iran, and in the days of the Soviet Union was a sort of buffer between the mullahs and the southern tier of Soviet states. Or so the thinking went - that was a horrible war, it didn't stop the extremism anyway, and was a major cause for the collapse of the Soviet Union.

[Colorado Blue]

3. Here! I found a link about this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1388296