ISTANBUL: Türkiye will start exporting natural gas from Azerbaijan to the Syrian Arab Republic this Saturday, the energy minister announced, as Damascus said the imports would go toward electricity production.
Syria’s Islamist authorities, who toppled Bashar Assad in December, are seeking to rebuild the country’s infrastructure and economy after almost 14 years of civil war.
The conflict badly damaged Syria’s power infrastructure, leading to cuts that can last for more than 20 hours a day.
“We will start exporting natural gas from Azerbaijan to Aleppo via Kilis,” a province in southernmost Türkiye near the Syrian border, Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said Wednesday.
According to Syrian state news agency SANA, Energy Minister Mohammad Al-Bashir confirmed that “from August 2, Syria will begin to receive 3.4 million cubic meters of gas from Azerbaijan” via Türkiye.
