Brussels, 17/04/2008 (Agence Europe) - Apart from the issues of cooperation in education, security and human rights, it was energy that was at the heart of discussions in the ministerial meeting in Ashgabat on 10 April between the EU delegation, made up of Dimitrij Rupel and Bernard Kouchner, Slovenian and French foreign ministers respectively, and External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, and government representatives from the Central Asian Republics of Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. On the sidelines of the meeting, the EU and Turkmenistan repeated their desire to develop their energy cooperation through a memorandum of understanding (see EUROPE 9545). Discussions on trans-Caspian energy corridors skirting around Russia are, then, still on-going. Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhammedov gave promises that his country would provide annual exports of 10 billion cubic metres of gas to the Community market from 2009, Ferrero-Waldner said in the Financial Times. This represents “an important first step” since, “even though the amount is not great, it is enough to start Nabucco”, the gas pipeline which, from 2012, which transport natural gas from Central Asia via the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary to Austria. (E.H.)