Erdogan confirms that Turkey will pay part of its Russian gas imports in rubles

Aug. 6 () –

The President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, confirmed this Saturday on his return from a visit to Russia that the Turkish government will begin to pay a part of its Russian gas imports in rubles.

“We are Turkey and our door is open to everyone,” he explained to Erdogan after the meeting held on Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the town of Sochi.

“One good thing that we got out of that meeting is that we have agreed on the ruble with Mr. Putin, and since we will carry out this (gas) trade in rubles, it is clear that Turkey and Russia are going to make money,” he commented in statements collected by the official Turkish news agency Anatolia.

All this is added to a principle of agreement by which five Turkish banks plan to adopt Russia’s Mir payment system to facilitate transactions, according to the president added after receiving information from the simultaneous meeting in the Russian city held by the respective governors of the Russian and Turkish central banks.

Neither Erdogan nor Russia have specified how much of the gas will be covered by payments in rubles.

While Turkey has expressed opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it has so far refrained from joining US and European sanctions against Russia to facilitate a “mediator” role in the crisis. Turkey has already announced that thanks to this performance it will be able to purchase Ukrainian and Russian grain at a level below market prices.

Ankara has also continued to import energy from Russia, which provided a quarter of its crude oil imports and about 45% of its natural gas deliveries last year.

Russia has also provided Turkey with much-needed foreign currency liquidity by transferring billions of dollars to a Turkey-based subsidiary of Russian nuclear operator Rosatom to complete construction of a plant on the Mediterranean coast.