Talks between Turkey and Azerbaijan over securing gas for Europe have temporarily halted due to disagreements over Turkey's efforts to normalise relations with Armenia, Turkey said on Tuesday.

Armeniah still occupies territory owned by Ankara's traditional ally Azerbaijan.

The talks over gas supplies from Azerbaijan's Shakh Deniz II gas project are crucial to help filling the European Union-backed Nabucco pipeline project, which aims to reduce Europe's dependence on Russian gas.

Turkey have put a temporary stop to the talks.

"We have not talked with the Azeris for between a month and a month and a half, the fundamental issue here is politics," said Energy Minister Taner Yildiz, speaking at a news conference.

Turkey signed protocols late last year with Armenia to establish diplomatic relations and reopen their frontier.

Yildiz said it was unclear whether a previous offer to transit the Azeri gas to Europe at less than markets prices had been accepted.

The accords however have been slowed as Turkey accused Aramenia of trying to re-write the texts after top court ruling.

Nuclear talks with Russia

Yildiz also said fundamental issues regarding the building of a nuclear power plant would have to be worked out with Russia by May.

Turkey wants to build at least two nuclear power plants to reduce dependence on foreign energy imports and cover a looming shortfall in electricity.

Energy Ministry sources have said the government may forego a tender for one of the plants and hand the project to a Russian-Turkish consortium after a previous nuclear tender, won by a Russian-Turkish partnership, was annulled over power pricing issues.

"The fundamental issues regarding the building of a nuclear power station with Russia need to be resolved by May," said Yildiz.

Yildiz also said that he hoped to boost crude oil supplies via tthe Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline from Iraq to 70 million tonnes per year from a current annual 25 million tonnes.


Agencies