Turkish Energy Minister, Ali Riza Alaboyun, said Tuesday that the natural gas price dispute between Turkey and Russia was taken to the arbitration court on Monday.
"We demanded discount from Russia andthe arbitration court will decide on it," Alaboyun said speaking at a launch of an electricity generation ship in Istanbul.
Russia announced a 6 percent discount on natural gas purchases from Turkey last December, however Turkey,which is the second biggest importer of Russian gas after Germany,demanded a further decrease in prices.
Russia then raised the discount rate to10.25 percent, but this was never realized between Turkish state-owned pipeline company, BOTAS, and Russia's state-operated Gazprom.
Sincethere was no discount implementation after December, Turkey gained the right to take the discount case to the International Arbitration Court after June this year based on a clause in the gas deal between the two sides.
Alaboyun said Russia ignored Turkey's calls for the price settlementsince June, which led to the dispute been taken to the arbitration court.
The energy minister explained that Turkey and Russiawere previously due to take cases to the International Arbitration Court,but these cases were settled outside of court before the hearings took place.
"We
will keep purchasing our gas as alwaysuntil the case ends," the
minister added in an effort to relieve the public of the possibility
of natural gas cuts in the winter.
