Qatar and Turkey to Build Svilengrad-Ruse Highway
Bulgarian PM Boyko Borissov and his counterparts Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani of Qatar and Recep Erdogan of Turkey had a meeting in the residency of Avksinograd. The three top politicians agreed on the construction of a highway from the town of Svilengrad near the Bulgarian-Turkish border to the port of Ruse on the Danube.
"We are going to build a speedway or a highway from Svilenggrad to Rousse together with the port and an extra bridge or a tunnel under the Danube, depending what we manage to negotiate with Bucharest. The regional development ministers of our countries are scheduled to meet at 11 am next Thursday in Sofia to discuss the route, the legal procedures and the profitability of the project and, if everything goes well, to set up a consortium which to build this road,? Mr. Borissov said.
He went on to say that the project could not be co-financed by the EU as it is outside the competence of the EU.
The project could be realized with direct financing from Qatar or by a tripartite consortium.
"The inter-connector link (editor's note - inter-system gas connection) is far from reality," PM Borissov stated.
"What Turkey may give Bulgaria as diversification of gas connections is only in critical situations. At the same time, Qatar sells natural gas in regions where the country has its own markets and Bulgaria is not in this region," PM Borissov explained.
That's why the good relations with Russia were underlined as well as its big role in the Arab world. The importance of South Stream project was also mentioned.
"Here we talked about trilateral investments which if realized, we will become a model example for Europe. Turkey is the gateway to Europe and Bulgaria is its corridor," Qatar's PM stated.
"We suffer from incomplete projects - for Tundhza river, for dams and rivers. That's why we discussed several steps and the ministers of regional development and infrastructure will start work on them," Turkey's PM Erdogan stated.
Text and photo: standartnews.com
(21.05.2012)