01/09/2016 (Agence Europe) – The Turkish government and the Russian gas group Gazprom agreed on Wednesday 31 October to speed up procedures for granting the necessary permission to relaunch the Turkish Stream gas pipeline project under the Black Sea, after an agreement on normalising bilateral relations was reached at a meeting in St. Petersburg on 9 August between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan. On Wednesday, Turkish Energy Minister Berat Albayrak and Gazprom Chief Executive Alexey Miller discussed the next steps to be taken and agreed to finalise the granting of all necessary permits to begin implementing the Turkish Stream project “in the shortest time”, Gazprom announced, stating that negotiations on the commercial terms of Russian gas supplies to Turkey would continue. (EH)