Turkmenistan not to take part in Nabucco project - Kremlin aide

ASHGABAT, July 5 (Itar-Tass) - Turkmenistan is not going to
participate in the construction of the Nabucco gas pipeline, Russian
president's aide Sergei Prikhodko told reporters on Friday.
"We have never heard the word Nabucco from our Turkmen colleagues," he
stressed.
The 3,300-kilometre-long Nabucco pipeline is to connect the European
Union with gas fields of Central Asia and the Middle East. It is expected
that the construction of the gas pipeline will begin in 2010. It will go
along the route Turkey-Bulgaria-Romania-Hungary-Austria. The cost of the
project, supported by the European Union, is estimated at seven billion
euros.
Earlier, the general director of the Gazpromexport company, Alexander
Medvedev, said Russia's gas giant Gazprom is not planning at the moment to
join the project either as partner or as supplier of natural gas, and
instead it plans to concentrate on the South Stream project.