istanbul, jan. 8 (xinhua) -- turkey and russia on wednesday inaugurated the turkstream pipeline that transports russian natural gas to turkey and europe.
turkish president recep tayyip erdogan and his russian counterpart vladi* putin attended the ceremony in istanbul along with ser*an president aleksandar vucic and bulgarian prime minister boyko borissov.
the turkstream will provide gas to turkey and the south and southeast europe in two parallel pipelines, running 930 km through the black sea, from the russian city of anapa to the northwestern turkish town of kiyikoy in the trace region.
one pipeline will supply gas to turkey, and the other will reach the turkish-european border to carry the gas first to bulgaria, ser*a and hungary.
speaking at the ceremony, putin said turkey and russia will implement many * mutually beneficial *s in energy and other areas, despite efforts at obstruction.
for his part, erdogan called the pipeline * "historic" in terms of the *lateral ties and the world's energy map.
russia's energy minister alexander valentinovich novak described the * as one of the world's largest infrastructure *s, boosting turkey's role on the world stage.
turkstream will deliver a total of 31.5 *llion cu*c meters of russian natural gas each year, with turkey receiving half of it and europe, the rest.
turkish minister of energy and natural resources fatih donmez said the * would eliminate possible transit risks by * turkey the first buyer of the natural gas.
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