The United States is in talks with Turkey about ways that the country can help facilitate gas supplies to southeastern European countries such as North Macedonia and Bulgaria. This is what senior US officials told Bloomberg News.

Turkey has the capacity to receive liquefied natural gas (LNG) and convert it back into gaseous form. Most of this LNG comes from the United States, but Turkey is also discussing LNG supplies with Qatar. The United States welcomes additional Turkish imports and hopes the country can help supply gas to European countries. With this, the Americans want to ensure that Europe becomes less dependent on Russia for energy.

According to US officials, there have been positive talks with their Turkish counterparts about energy cooperation in recent days. In addition, there are discussions about cooperation in the field of renewable energy, the expansion of a gas pipeline that runs from Azerbaijan through Georgia and Turkey to Europe and about raw materials such as copper, lithium, nickel and cobalt needed to make batteries, for example.